


Vortex

by lesbianbey



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: A lot of breaking and entering, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Humor, Breaking and Entering, Emotional Baggage, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Kidnapping, MacGuyvering, Minor Character Death, No Rewind Powers, No Storm in Arcadia Bay, References to Drugs, Sexual Assault, also I love dana, and some sheer dumb luck, but a good chunk of characters are mentioned, but he isn’t a woobie he's a straight up villain, characters are listed due to their relevance to the plot, seriously, they should get arrested for it, this fandom has a habit of making him a woobie, this is the first story I’ve ever written where nathan has more than a few lines of dialogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-07-07 23:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15918468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianbey/pseuds/lesbianbey
Summary: After the fire alarm inside the Blackwell girls' bathroom goes off, preventing Chloe from getting shot, Chloe tries to investigate Nathan's sketchy behavior with the one person who knows Nathan more than anyone else. Together, they find out secrets about Arcadia Bay, Rachel, Nathan, and what's going on during those damn parties.— or, lis s1 with Chloe and Victoria solving the case.





	1. fire and ice

It’s been five months, one week, six days, and an hour since Rachel was rendered missing by the city. Chloe counts every minute like clockwork, mostly because she has nothing better to do anymore and she surely couldn’t be assed to find something to do. But she does have something to do and it involves that little fucker in the girls bathroom.

She slips inside the Blackwell building without much effort on her half and goes straight to the bathroom, not stopping to say hi to anyone. She barely knew a lot of people and kept a lot of people at arms length especially after Max left and Rachel’s six month disappearance. 

Chloe didn’t understand why Nathan even wanted them in the girls bathroom since another place could’ve worked out, but she didn’t have time to lament on it. She wanted cash. She needed a head start in getting the fuck out of Arcadia Bay, and fast.

When she enters the room, she glares at Nathan shortly before heading towards the stalls. “So what do you want?” He snarls out.

“I hoped you checked the perimeters as my step-ass would say,” she chides, opening each door for any signs of humans listening in on their deal. “Now let’s talk bidness—”

“I have _nothing_ for you.”

Chloe turns around and sneers. “Wrong. You’ve got hella cash.” 

“That's my family, not me."   
  
"Oh boo boo, poor little rich kid. I know you've been pumpin' drugs n' shit to kids 'round here." She walks to Nathan's right side and gets close to him, dangerously close to see him twitching. "I bet your respectable family would help me out if I went to them. Man, I can see the headlines now—"   
  
"Leave, them out of this, bitch," Nathan commands.   
  
Chloe isn't having that. She needs something stronger to convince Nathan to fork up the hush money, and fast. "I can tell everybody that Nathan Prescott is a punk ass who begs like a little girl and talks to himself—"   
  
Chloe pushes him one last time, which prompts Nathan to pull out a loaded gun and aim it at Chloe. "You don't know who the _fuck_ I am, or who you're messing around with!"   
  
Chloe puts her hands up in defense, darting her head around the place in fear. "Where'd you get that? What are you doing? Come on, put that thing down."   
  
Chloe backs up into a wall, prompting Nathan to aim the gun on her abdomen, holding the wall with his free hand. Chloe feels nothing but adrenaline and nerves. "Don't ever tell me what to do, i'm so sick of people trying to control me!"   
  
"You are going to get in hella more trouble for this than drugs—"   
  
"Nobody would ever even miss your punk ass, would they?"

Suddenly, the sound of a fire drill is heard. With that distraction, Chloe thrusts her knee between Nathan’s legs, then punches him in the face. The gun starts flying almost across the room. “ _You fucking psycho!_ Guess I’ll have to report this to your shitty family.” Without another word, Chloe storms out and tries to leave unseen by other students trying to exit the building during one of Wells’ surprise fire drills.

Growling to herself, Chloe slams on her dashboard then rubs her hands on it, soothing it from her weekly abuse. Not only has she not get any money from Nathan, her angel is still missing and everyone has basically called off the search and moved on with their lives. Even James Amber stopped looking for his daughter, knowing that he lost her a while before that and it makes Chloe sick to her stomach to think about. Granted, she never liked James but she knew he loved her daughter enough to protect her from a drug dealer. His actions are still unorthodox and Chloe would rather think about other things. 

She pulls out a cigarette from her pocket and looks for her lighter, hoping that the smell of tobacco will stop an impending panic attack from almost being held at gunpoint by a mentally ill fuck who probably stole that gun from his father and didn’t think to unload it and it was Chloe’s dumb luck that she got away without so much of a scratch. She relaxes when she finds her lighter, and leans against her truck, smoking her cigarette.

She needed to get away from here. Ever since Rachel’s disappearance, Chloe hasn’t stopped looking for the girl. She searches high and low, tearing up Rachel’s old dorm and bedroom, interrogating people to the point where she made several students cry and even stopped talking to Steph and the North brothers for a while to focus on finding her beautiful angel who saved her from probably taking her own life before she turned eighteen. But, she wants to stop thinking about Rachel. 

Stop thinking about Arcadia Bay. 

Stop thinking about William, David, and Joyce. 

Stop thinking about Max.

She narrows her eyes as she scans the parking lot. There’s Warren with some girl she didn’t know or care about. There’s also an uppity bitch she used to know, texting away on her phone as usual. Sighing, she decides to get inside her car and drive away from the campus instead of entertaining anything else concerning Blackwell and its students. She narrowly misses hitting Nathan on the way but she didn't give a shit. She should've hit him after what he tried to do.

* * *

 

Victoria's texting is suddenly interrupted by shouting nearby. She wouldn't think too much of it if she doesn't see Nathan shouting at what seems to be Lamefield. She shouldn't give a shit. She hates Max Caulfield more than she hated anyone (and that included that dumb bitch Juliet Watson). But, her instincts kick in once she sees him twitching and she walks over there. “Nate!”

Nathan turns around and glares at Victoria. “What do you want, pixie?”

“Come with me, we have Vortex Club handlings,” Victoria lies. “I have weed.” Nathan glares at Lamefield and Gayram one last time, then follows Victoria. She misses Maxine’s thankful look. “What the _fuck_ are you doing meddling with Gayram and Lamefield? And did you take your meds?”

“I don't take my meds anymore—”

“Which is why you're practically twitching around like you're tweaked,” Victoria scolds. She pulls him inside her dorm room, almost forgetting what she did earlier (which was prank Juliet Watson for that article she wrote last week) and glares at him again. “Do you want to get suspended for endangering someone else's life...again?”

“No,” Nathan sighs. “And I knew Caulfield was in that bathroom when I was trying to discuss something with that blue haired Price bitch.”

“ _ Chloe _ Price? What the fuck would you want from that gangly bitch other than cheap ass weed?” Victoria never liked Chloe Price, even when they attended school together. She was thankful when she got expelled and fucked off, meaning she wouldn't have to deal with her and Rachel, but Rachel was still a thorn on her shoulder until she fucked off too.

“We had important shit to discuss. And speaking of weed—“

Victoria scoffs and thrusts one of her joints towards her best friend. “You’re lucky you’re my friend, otherwise I would’ve smacked you for taking my weed.”

“Maybe next time don’t tempt me with the good ol’ ganja,” Nathan states, blowing marijuana smoke in Victoria’s face. When Nathan takes another drag, Victoria grabs his face and inhales the second hand smoke from his exhale as swiftly as possible. “ _Goddamn,_ Victoria. Give me a warning next time.”

“Shut the hell your mouth,” She mumbles, and exhales the watered down smoke.

It was enough for Nathan to lean in again and kiss Victoria instead. She doesn’t even push him away suddenly like usual. But after a few seconds of harsh lip biting, Victoria then pushes him off and glares at him shortly. “You know I don’t do that shit anymore.”

“Kiss me or kiss boys?” Nathan inquires, wagging his eyebrows with a fascinated smirk. 

Victoria doesn’t answer. Instead she just blows smoke in Nathan’s face and gives him the rest of the joint. “I’m gonna go find Price and give her a piece of my mind.”

“Good luck with that,” is the last thing she hears before the door closes. She smirks as she watches Juliet glaring at her as she passes by. She felt for the trick, hook line and sinker. 

There are only a few places where the Price girl hangs out at other than this campus. The diner, and that ratty old junkyard. With her hunch, she heads for the junkyard by getting inside her car and driving off. She’s never been here and would like for it to stay that way, but she’s on a mission. Nobody fucks with her best friends, and that includes Kari Price.

She easily finds the bitch napping inside her shitty car. She smacks on the hood to wake the girl up. “Fuck!” Chloe shouts, then glares at Victoria while exiting the car. “You don’t belong here.”

Victoria merely cackles. “Oh _please,_ Price. As if you own this place. Then again, trash is usually attracted to other trash.”

Chloe narrows her eyes and inches closer to Victoria. “I mean it, bitch.”

“I was looking for you,” Victoria states firmly. “Nate seemed pretty tweaked and he said he had business with you, so spill it out Price.”

Chloe snorts. “Your little boyfriend pulled a gun on me. Had I not think on my toes, my brain matter would be all over the bathroom floor.”

Victoria hated it when people accused her of dating Nathan. She also hated when people accused him of doing shit but that’s another story. “You’re bluffing.”

“I don’t bluff, I speak facts...and Nathan isn’t right in the head.”

“So are you, so I’m not sure—“

Chloe grabs Victoria’s shirt and pushes her towards the exit. “Why the fuck would you come all the way over here just to tell me I’m a liar? Ask your pervy ass _boyfriend_ why he was taking pictures of me unconscious and why he decided to _pull a gun on me_ when I threatened to tell his parents that he’s into some shady shit!” Nothing else is said. “Go on, ask him. And _don’t_ come back to me defending your piece of shit of a boyfriend ever again.”

“He’s _not_ my boyfriend,” Victoria argues firmly.

Chloe merely scoffs. “And I’m _not_ convinced. Trust me, everyone can hear your screeches from across the town.”

Victoria clenches her fists. “Shut the fuck up, Price.”

“That white dick must be good huh?” Chloe taunts, smirking wider as Victoria grows even angrier. “Do you swallow his psychotic man juice or do you spit it out like a whore?”

“I’m warning you—“

“Or does he pull out and give you a nice little pearl necklace?”

Victoria’s anger suddenly bubbles over as she delivers a right hook on Chloe’s face. She smirks victoriously as Chloe stumbles against her car and touches her cheek to check for blood. Chloe quickly recovers and glares at Victoria. Chloe punches her back but Victoria stands her ground, merely checking if she was bleeding, then charging at the blue headed demon with a loud screech.

Chloe’s back collides with the hood of her car but she deflects Victoria’s fists and pushes her on the dirty ground. “Get out of my sight.” Victoria gets up and dusts herself off before giving Chloe a deadly stare. _“I said go away!”_ Chloe yells and stomps her foot. 

“Don’t _fuck_ with me or my friends ever again,” Victoria growls. With that, she stomps away, getting some dirt out of her hair as she keeps walking. 

That wasn’t as successful as she would like to think. Victoria never really cared for fighting other girls in school but when she did have to, she did it. However Chloe was just taller and not willing to fight like Victoria. Then again, Victoria would’ve embarrassed Price even more so maybe that was a good decision after all. 

Going back to school after that was as calm as she expected. However, when she reached the dorms, all hell broke loose.

“You evil bitch!” Juliet yells at her and storms over to her, only to be held back by Dana.

“Oh _no_ Dana, let her go. I would _love_ to knock this bitch down on her flat ass,” Victoria smirks. She’s still fired up from her fight with Chloe, so if someone wants to fight, she’s gonna fight them. “And it seems like you got my message.”

“If I didn’t have help from Max I would’ve locked my own best friend in her room for hours!” Juliet exclaims. “This is exactly why I wrote those articles in the newspapers. You’re a fucking bully and you’ll stop at nothing to hurt others.”

“Are you hurt?”

That simple comment almost sends Juliet off but Dana once again proves that she’s stronger. _“Stay away from me!”_ Juliet shouts.

Victoria shrugs. “As long as you stay away from me, we won’t have any more problems. And that means keeping my name ten feet from your future articles.”

Juliet shrugs Dana off and walks to her dorm, slamming the door behind her. Suddenly Dana glares at Victoria and she would be scared if she wasn’t high on adrenaline right now. “Not cool, Vic.”

“Ok? Serves her right for putting my name on the article even after I told her not to.”

“No, you tried to stop her from posting the entire article—“

“Because that would stop future people from joining the club—“

“The club isn’t even _that_ great, Victoria,” Dana admits. “I think you even know that. All we do is throw parties and bully kids. We should be more inclusive and friendly, not excluding people because they don’t look a certain way.”

“I haven’t seen either you _or_ Watson complaining about the parties. In fact, she’s just a valued member as you are!” Victoria claims. “You know what? I don’t care about this shit anymore. I need a shower and your ugly ass best friend almost killed my entire vibe.”

“When will you stop being so mean to everyone?” Dana asks as Victoria takes a couple steps towards her room. “I’ve seen you be nice to people, like Taylor. Why can’t you show that to some of us? Maybe we wouldn’t be so compelled to dislike and namedrop you.”

“I don’t have to be nice to _any_ of you,” Victoria growls. “Especially not to you or Watson. Now fuck off.” She clenches her fists and keeps on walking to her room, closing her door with a hard slam. Narrowing her eyes, she sees her pictures rearranged. Knowing exactly who it is, she lets out a loud screech and storms to her neighbor’s door. She doesn’t bother with knocking and enters, finding the dumb bitch sitting on her bed and doing what appears to be homework. 

“What are you doing here?” Max inquires, giving a very stink look towards Victoria.

“If you _ever_ step foot inside my room again and mess up my shit, I will destroy your entire being,” Victoria threatens. “Is that understood, Bitchfield?”

“Bitchfield! Another good one by the Queen Bitch herself!” Max deadpans. “And sure, whatfuckingever. Now can you leave my room before I call security?”

Victoria didn’t believe she could clench her fists even further but she does. After her skirmish with Price and almost getting into it with Watson, she’s not in the mood for Caulfield’s attitude. “I mean what I said, and it's not an empty threat. I _don’t_ play games, and I _don’t_ kid. Mess up my shit and I will destroy you.” She turns around and goes to her room without another word. Fuck. Next time, she’s kicking people out before she leaves so she can lock the door.


	2. simmer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a happiest belated birthday to the time warrior, the myth, the legend, and one of my favorite characters in the lis universe (and probably of all time), max caulfield. hope you're saving the world somewhere. also national talk in pirate day was sometime this week so that was interesting lmao.
> 
> A major trigger warning in this chapter. I'm sorry. Well, not really.

After Victoria storms away from the junkyard, Chloe checks her face out in the reflection, seeing a busted cheek and what seems to be a forming black eye. It almost reminds her of that time she was punched in the face by those drunk bikers the first time she met Rachel, only a lot worse because Victoria was indeed sober, and seemingly stronger than a bunch of drunk men. Her eye is _seriously_ hurting. “Shit,” she mutters. Now she needs to ice it, which means going back home to her questioning mother and her shitty ass stepfather. They’ll definitely ask questions.

Risking it, she drives home. It isn’t very quiet because David is watching television but she slips in unnoticed. After getting a couple ice cubes with a cloth, she goes straight upstairs and places the cloth over her eye. 

She barely expected to be held at gunpoint by Nathan and then punched in the face by Victoria in one day. To her knowledge, both of them are fucking assholes. She may have to use her alternative plan to extort money from the Prescotts by using Nathan and his little photography fetish. However, she doesn’t know where the little nub lives. Rachel did, but she’s missing. The only other person that might know would be the one person she hated just as much as she hated Nathan, and Chloe doubts she would get any information from the Chase heiress after their fight earlier, but it’s worth a try.

When Chloe wakes up the next morning, she plans out the agenda for the next few months in her head: get Chase to confess about Nathan’s estate, convince his parents to give her hush money, and find Rachel’s possible whereabouts. If it goes well, she’ll be gone before Christmas. She will go straight to LA to find Rachel and they can live their lives away from the cesspool that is named Arcadia Bay. If not, anything beats spending the rest of her life in Arcadia Bay. She’ll be homeless in Hollywood and it’s _tons better_ than staying another hour at her shitty hometown.

She waits until both her mom and David walk out before getting her usual smoke on. She opens the window and plays some Fleetwood Mac on her radio, ignoring the thought that her neighbors may get pissed off. Who cares? Not Chloe. 

After a few minutes to collect herself, Chloe grabs her keys and climbs out the window and then drives straight to the school. As much as she hated Blackwell, she’s always here either to interrogate some of the students about Rachel’s whereabouts or to reapply Rachel’s missing posters. She never had much friends other than Rachel (and maybe Justin) but she recognizes faces from when she used to go here. Everyone was either fake or a straight up geek that she didn’t exactly care about. Or a fucking wallflower who was probably worse than Maxine Caulfield, and succumbed to some freak injury.

Right when she’s about to go to the dorms, Victoria appears talking with Taylor Christensen and some other girl that Chloe didn’t care to know about. Rubbing her hands together, she approaches the girl. “So how’s that bruise healing up?”

Victoria stiffens, then orders her friends to go without her. When her friends walk away, Victoria glares at Chloe. “You have some nerve even _approaching_ me after what happened yesterday.”

“Are you still mad that I called you out on your bullshit and smacked the shit outta you?”

Victoria snarls. “Oh, you did all of that?”

“Yeah, I did. Serves you right for trespassing.”

“Do you even realize that you were trespassing yourself?” Victoria argues. “You know what? Don’t fucking answer that. What the fuck are you doing here? Haven’t you caused enough trouble at a school you don’t even attend anymore?”

Chloe wanted to die instead of asking Victoria for something like this. “I...need a favor.”

“Right, you need a favor from the girl you punched yesterday.”

Chloe grinds her teeth together, as if it isn’t already damaged from grinding them at times throughout the years. “I just need to know where the Prescotts live...and since you probably know where he lives…”

Victoria stares at Chloe incredulously, then laughs. “Oh my god. You’re _seriously_ asking me for Nathan’s address?”

“I'm not laughing along with you, so yes I am.”

Victoria raises a curious eyebrow. “What are you up to, Price? I thought the plan was to find your angel.”

“This is a part of the plan, idiot,” Chloe retorts.

“ _You_ are the fucking idiot, Chloe Price,” Victoria says angrily. “If you really think I'm just gonna share my best friend’s address with the likes of you, then you are _sorely_ mistaken. I don’t know what the hell you have up your sleeve, but I'm not gonna fall down with you to a path of inexplicable despair.”

Chloe should’ve known that she needed to build Victoria’s trust first in order to do that. Then again, she despises Victoria and there must be someone else who knows Nathan’s address. “You know what? Go fuck yourself.”

“Oh, the original _‘go fuck yourself’_ line from Chloe Elizabeth Price,” Victoria says sardonically. “You know what, dumbass? If you have any brain cells left from smoking all that stale reefer, you would’ve _googled_ the address instead of asking me.”

“Shit, why didn’t I think of that!” Chloe groans.

“Wow, you’re even stupider than I expected. Then again, you didn’t complete high school so—“

“Shh,” Chloe shushes Victoria with a hand movement, as she types in a couple words in the search bar. “Bingo. Now I can finally expose Mr. Prescott.”

“Are you still convinced that Nate took pictures of you?” 

Chloe grinds her teeth and pulls put a picture from her back pocket. She unfolds it and thrusts it in Victoria’s line of vision. “There. Now you believe me? You think this was taken to my knowledge?”

Victoria snatches the photo from Chloe’s grip and glares at it. “ _What the fuck?_ ” She turns to Chloe with an expression that Chloe couldn’t read. “When did this happen? _How_ did this happen?”

“I don’t know...last month? The 22nd?” Chloe explains. “I was at a bar when Nathan was there. He took me to his room and we were just talking mad shit. I wanted some of his money so I can get out of there but before I knew it, I was unconscious for a while. I woke up and he was just snapping away with his camera. I kicked him and left without much to say. Then when I was conscious I snuck in his dorm and swiped this photo for evidence, just in case I have to present it to cops or whomever will listen to me.”

“Shit...fuck...so this is what he does when he disappears.”

“You _know_ that he’s missing at random times in the day?”

“Yeah but I don’t know where he goes or what he does. Most of the time I'm occupied with my own social life but I do notice that he’s gone at certain times. It happened again at this recent party...the first minute I remember some classmate named Kate Marsh kissing students at a party, boy _and_ girl...the next minute he’s taking her somewhere…”

“Oh my god. For once, you’re not _completely_ useless,” Chloe says, smirking at an offended looking Victoria. “Listen, I know you have some friendship going on with Nathan but he’s not to be trusted. You know something’s going on with him.”

“Sure, whatever...what even are you going to do with that picture? Get hush money and bail?”

“Actually, yes, but this might switch gears…” She grabs Victoria’s wrist and drags her towards her car. Victoria protests but Chloe doesn’t let go. She places her on the passenger’s side while getting to the driver’s side. 

Victoria struggles to open the door, only to find a small module on the door activated. “You put the child lock on?”

“Sure did,” Chloe says, and pulls out of the parking spot and drives off. “You are a child after all.”

“You’re a year older than me, you immature troll!” Victoria screeches. “And I told you I didn’t want to be involved with whatever the fuck is going on with you!”

“Too bad,” Chloe replies. She drives over to the junkyard, and despite not wanting to share her preferred place of solitude with anyone other than Rachel, it’s the one place that no one really goes to so she can speak to anyone without other people listening in. 

“This place again? What is your fascination with this dingy ass junkyard?”

“You said it best — trash is attracted to other trash,” Chloe recalls. “Plus, it's the one place where no one can listen to us.”

Victoria narrows her eyes. “I don’t want to—“

“No more ‘I don’t want to’. We’re doing this.”

Victoria growls and exits the car, further walking towards the junkyard. “I know of a hipster bitch who would love this place. Especially with that Polaroid she carries around 24/7. Now, since your dumbass brought me here for no other reason, what else are we talking about that we can’t discuss in public...or rather _at school?_ ”

“This student, Kate Marsh—“

“Oh hell no,” Victoria groans. “I refuse to talk to, or _about_ Jesus freak.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “That’s the only other person we know that may have been involved with Nathan’s photography game. Set aside your beef with half of the Blackwell student body for one day and just...be an adult about this...like we’re doing right now.”

“I don’t have beef with half of the student body. I just have beef with Jesus Freak, Lamefield, and John Watson.”

Chloe laughs. “Who the fuck are those people?”

“The first one is _obviously_ Kate Marsh. The second one is that hipster bitch I mentioned earlier...Uh, a Max Caulfield—“

“Max Caulfield? As in _Maxine Caulfield?_ ”

“I only know _one_ Maxine Caulfield,” Victoria says. “What...you know the bitch or something?”

Chloe clears her throat, hiding her initial shock. She can’t believe Max Caulfield is back in town and didn’t even bother to tell Chloe about it. Then again, she may have forgotten about Chloe entirely. Still, it kind of hurts. “Used to. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now. Now, that third person?”

“Take a wild guess, Sherlock,” Victoria growls.

Chloe laughs again. “Juliet? That chick is cool as fuck. You have beef with some interesting people.”

“Uh, no the fuck she isn’t,” Victoria argues. “And you don’t even know Kate.”

“And neither do you,” Chloe says back. “But seriously...we have to find out what happened at that last party.”

“I told you, she kissed a bunch of people and then got whisked away by Nathan,” Victoria shortly explains. “I even got it on video. Wanna see?”

Chloe narrows her eyes. “Why would you tape someone kissing guys at one of your parties?”

“Posterity, evidence...humiliation,” Victoria lists.

“My god, do you ever...like... _chill_ with the cyber bullying?” Chloe asks.

“For your information, _Kari Price_ , I never posted it. Never got the chance to. I got sidetracked with Nathan threatening Caulfield about some skirmish in the bathrooms, allegedly involving you and a gun. Then we threw a couple punches at this same exact spot and I was too exhausted to worry about some other chick. And this is the first time I’ve ever thought of posting something like this!”

“You sent Rachel _numerous_ threatening comments on her page for years!” Chloe exclaims.

“I'm sorry, did you or did you _not realize_ that I was _angry_ at Amber for _sabotaging my tea?_ ” Victoria exclaims back. “My parents thought I was trying to get high with the drugs in my system. Only by _chance_ was I able to recover from that shit that quickly.”

“It was one stupid prank!”

“And yet, only _you and Amber were laughing!_ ”

Chloe groans. She was actually being guilt tripped by Blackwell’s Queen Bee. Then again, she did feel a little bad after it. Victoria wasn’t even entirely mean that night. “Whatever. It was three years ago. Let’s get over it and focus on finding out what happened to Kate Marsh at the party.”

“Ok,” Victoria relents. “I told you my piece. If you need Jesus Freak’s statement, you can go straight to the source...without me.”

“No—“

“You don’t really need me. She fucking hates me and would probably run away from whom she believes is the Satan incarnate,” Victoria argues. “Aside from almost posting this video, I’ve been shitty to her because I don’t agree with her religion. And in before you think I'm an antisemite or an islamophobe, she’s a christian or one of those sanctions. I don’t care. I _hate_ those righteous assholes.”

“You mean with the holy water and the Bible and the controversial opinions about abortion and homosexuality and shit?”

Victoria nods. “She claims she isn’t like that. Yeah, _bullshit_. I’ve met people like her. They only appear to be nice and then they say something offensive in that sweet, high pitched Disney voice. I bet she never even met a lesbian in her life. She doesn’t even curse to my knowledge. _Fucking pussy._ ”

Chloe rolls her eyes in amusement. “You’re either jealous that people actually pay attention to Kate or she said something to you that you didn’t like.”

“Bitch wanted to have an abstinence club. _No one_ was gonna join that shit...except for maybe Gayram or that fat ass virgin Alyssa. I saved her the embarrassment.”

“If you weren't such a bully you might _actually_ be funny,” Chloe deadpans. “Come on, let’s go interrogate this mysterious Kate.”

* * *

 

When they get back to campus, droplets of rain hit the ground. “Fuck!” Victoria cusses. She expected the rain but she thought she would be inside the main building by now, but she was sidetracked and _temporarily kidnapped_ by Chloe Price. She didn’t want to be part of whatever hi-jinks the delinquent was planning, but she has a way with words. She just wanted to get to photography class and she’s already late due to wasting her morning with Price.

Then again, while she was over there, she noticed two things.

One, she noticed something weird when she mentioned Max Caulfield. Victoria had no idea that Chloe even knew of the hipster, since clearly Max says she’s from Seattle, but maybe she did live in Arcadia Bay in a past life. Victoria wouldn’t know because she doesn’t like Max. She should probably do some investigating like she used to do.

And two, there’s a very weird vibe at the junkyard. When she went yesterday, she noticed it but didn’t comment. Now that she was there to take a small tour, she noticed that weird vibe. There's also a ripped shirt nearby that reminded her of Rachel’s plaid phase that never seemed to end. Victoria wondered if Rachel ever owned it. 

That weird vibe entices her, on the other hand.

“Can you release the fucking child lock?” Victoria inquires. Chloe releases the child lock and unlocks the door entirely. When Victoria exits the car, she notices a bunch of students making their way towards the dorm building. “What the fuck?”

“Some fight?”

“No, because only a few students would leave class for that,” Victoria answers. “Follow me.” She follows the rest of the students and meets up with Taylor Christensen. “What the _hell_ is going on?”

“It’s Kate, she’s snapped,” Taylor replies. Victoria turns around and looks at the culprit up on the dorm roof. She gasps loudly, covering her mouth in shaken shock. “Did you do the thing?”

“I never had the chance to,” Victoria replies. “Why, did somebody—“

Suddenly, Kate steps down and starts falling, and a chorus of gasps elicits right before the sound of a body hitting the ground hits. Victoria releases a couple tears as Taylor starts to sob on her shirt. Several students start to crowd around until Madsen shouts at them to get back.

“Shit,” Chloe whispers. “Was that Kate?”

“Yup,” Victoria whispers.

The next few hours were a blur. Kate was dead at the scene so everyone decided to gather around and hold a memorial in front of her dorm. Victoria didn’t participate because she hated to show fake pity towards someone she didn’t care about. No disrespect, of course. She gets a knock at the door at around seven, mere hours after the suicide.

Victoria rolls her eyes a little as she exits out of her Funimation tab and opens the door and groans upon who’s in front of it. “How did you know my dorm number?”

“Your room slate,” Chloe replies. 

“I should probably warn you that Max’s dorm is behind you,” Victoria says, earning a glare from Chloe. “Hey, just warning you now if she steps out of her room and welcomes you with her presence...what are you doing here anyway? And how did you get past security?”

“You know David’s my stepdad, right?”

Victoria swings the door open so Chloe can come in and turns on the desk light as Chloe closes the door. “Seriously, _why_ are you here? No one’s really in the mood after Kate’s suicide. Including me, believe it or not. And Taylor’s coming by later ‘cause we’re going drinking and I don’t want her thinking we have something going on.”

“God forbid _someone_ in this damn school thinks we have something going on,” Chloe says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not into bitchy girls anyway.”

“Then why did you date Rachel for almost three years?”

Chloe snarls. “Whatever. And I'm pretty sure Nathan was all up in your pussy before.”

“I _never_ dated Nathan,” Victoria replies. “The only guy who even bothered to get below the belt was Riggins...and he didn’t get very far.”

“Ew,” Chloe snarls. “I rather not know the sordid details of you being involved with men.”

Victoria snorts. “Lesbian.”

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to hit up the estate for some clues but it seems like you already have plans—“ Victoria pulls her phone out of her pocket and sends a quick text to Taylor, cancelling their previous plans. “Victoria. You’re just gonna pull your phone out when I'm talking to you? I can see why people don’t like you.”

“Shut the fuck up. I was just cancelling plans with Taylor before she comes knocking on my door.” Victoria grabs her jacket, stuffs her feet in a pair of black sneakers, and drags Chloe out of her room. “And for the record, there are different reasons why people don’t like me.”

“So you're aware of people not liking you? I respect your self awareness.”

Victoria glares at Chloe. “Eat shit, Price.”

After locking her door, she takes Chloe to the other exit to slip out of the dorms unnoticed. It isn’t a minute after eight but Wells issued an early curfew after the suicide and so far, very few students actually listened to that. No one needs to be holed up in their rooms to bereave, Victoria says inwardly.

“So, which car are we taking?” Chloe inquires.

“Yours. I can make the illusion that I'm still in campus while not being on campus if it stays here...and Wells can have your car towed if he finds your car on his lot at this hour. He knows of all of our cars so a suspicious rustic truck will make him panic.” With that, Chloe pulls her keys out her pocket. Victoria opens the door and takes the passenger seat. “You know what? Let’s switch seats. I feel like driving.”

“Nuh uh!” Chloe denies. “I don’t let just _anyone_ drive my car! And do you even know how to drive a stick shift?”

“The first car my dad taught me how to drive was a stick shift. I'm very sure my dad wanted a boy, but that’s another discussion. Move over, Price, or I _will_ tell Wells that you’re here.” Chloe sighs and exits the car to go to the passenger side while Victoria moves to the other side to take the driver seat. Victoria puts her seatbelt on and gets a hold of the stick shift. Once Chloe enters the car, she stares at Chloe.

“What are you looking at?” Victoria sneers and points at the seatbelt. “Ugh.”

“Put the seatbelt on, dumbass,” Victoria demands. “Or I go back to my dorm and I tell Wells that your car was in the parking lot.”

“This is _my_ car—”

“—that _I'm_ driving. Get on with the seatbelt, Kari.”

“ _It's Chloe,_ ” she spits out, reluctantly putting on her seatbelt. “Happy now?”

Victoria just smirks. “Yes. You're suffering.” She pulls out of the parking lot and drives towards the Prescott estate. It was miles away from Arcadia Bay and most civilization, but it was far enough to make it in less than 90 minutes. When she used to visit the estate, she snuck in as opposed to going through the front door because the Prescott’s didn’t like her. Nathan has a dorm on campus but goes home from time to time. Victoria doesn’t see his car, so he isn’t home. _Perfect._

“Why does this area look familiar to me?”

“The Amber residence is a couple miles north,” Victoria states. She guides Chloe to the back of the mansion and easily finds the ladder up to Nathan’s room. “Come on.” She goes up first and opens the window to Nathan’s room. Chloe is following as well so as soon as Victoria crawls in, she tries to help Chloe in.

“This isn’t the first window I’ve climbed into,” Chloe claims. 

“Whatever,” Victoria shrugs. “Just make sure the ladder doesn’t fall or we’re shit out of luck until tomorrow morning.”

Chloe keeps the window open while Victoria turns the light on. The room is messy as per usual, but messier than what she expected. There are a lot more scattered photos and some crumpled sketching paper balls. There’s also a picture of Nathan and his older sister Kristine from when they’re younger but the glass covering is broken and there appears to be some blood. “Fucking…”

“Damn Nathan, you live like this?”

Victoria snorts. “Your room is probably _just_ as messy.”

“No it’s not,” Chloe lies.

“Uh huh. Just look for clues.” Within the next hour, Victoria looks inside the closets, under the bed, inside drawers, and other places and she can’t seem to find anything incriminating. She found bottles upon bottles of medications, a medical bracelet, an old picture of former student Samantha Myers (who supposedly died but Victoria wasn’t entirely sure), some sketchbooks, old pencils, his old portfolio that Andrew North threw in the fountain, and week old snacks. “Shit. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing other than this huge, inconspicuous box,” Chloe replies,

Victoria furrows her eyebrows and inspects the box. It has a combination lock. She turns the lock around and twists the knob to a series of numbers. It opens just like that. “Oh my god...you're not useless at all,” Chloe says, grinning.

“Gee, thanks,” Victoria deadpans. She turns around and looks inside the box. Inside contains a bunch of money that Victoria believes is his emergency trust fund. “This is a safe.”

“Hot damn! I knew this little shit had his own money,” Chloe says, aiming to grab some of the money when Victoria slaps her hand. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t take his money or he’s gonna know someone was in here!”

“That piece of shit owes me money anyway!” Chloe whisper shouts. 

“Put the money down you dumb bitch!” Victoria demands, slapping Chloe’s hand making her drop the money inside the safe. She gets up and sighs. “This was fucking _useless_. He was smart enough not to keep shit here.”

“Except 10% of his trust fund,” Chloe mumbles.

Once she hears the safe close shut a minute after the comment, Victoria glares at Chloe, noticing some subtle changes. “Are you kidding me? I _said_ drop the money.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So you went up a bra size in less than two minutes?” Victoria deadpans. 

“Why the _hell_ are you even staring at my chest?”  Victoria’s glare turns deadly. Chloe frowns and removes a stack of money from her right breast, and another one in her left breast. “Happy?”

Victoria narrows her eyes. “You think I was born yesterday? Knowing people like you, you keep money on different parts of your body. Let’s go Price, we don’t have all night.” Chloe groans again and removes stacks from her sock, her back pocket, inside her jacket pocket, and under her beanie. “Good.” She reopens the safe and safely drops the warm stack of money back inside the safe. She closes it and wipes her hands. “Let’s go.”


	3. discovery

“So like...when you said Zach didn’t get far, what did you _exactly_ mean? Did you stop pre-coital or was his big dick energy so weak that you didn’t have an orgasm?”

Victoria furrows her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t want to know the details. And why are you suddenly reinterested in my sex life?”

“Or lack thereof,” Chloe adds.

“You think I'm lying about having sex with Zach, because I'm not. And it was the second one. The dumbass came in seconds and I had to kick him out to finish the job myself. Worst two minutes of my life. Maybe Watson likes those type of dudes, or she’s fucking celibate.”

“Is she really dating that sorry son of a bitch? Yikes,” Chloe grimaces. “While you’re with Nathan.”

“I am _not_ with Nathan. We’re best friends and not all best friends fuck each other,” Victoria defends. “He was into Amber anyway. I always told him she wasn’t worth it but he never listened.”

“It isn’t worth it because she was with me,” Chloe responds, smirking a little. “I just wished she would tell me where she is.” She didn’t want to think about Rachel, especially when there’s so much going on, like finding out more about Nathan’s photography game, but somehow this may be linked to Rachel. Something always told Chloe that maybe Rachel isn’t exactly...alive, considering that Rachel always tells her where she’s going, like when she went to Big Sur for a week. However, thinking like that would only result in even more emotional despair. “I know you don’t give a shit so don’t say anything.”

“I'm not gonna.”

Nothing else is said for the rest of the ride. Chloe decides to drop Victoria off at the front of campus as opposed to the parking lot just in case someone was working and spots her truck. It’s only a little after ten, but Victoria did mention that there’s an earlier curfew after what happened to Kate. 

After Victoria exits the car without saying anything, Chloe drives back home and walks in, being bombarded with questions from both her mother and David. “Chloe, where were you this whole time?” Her mother asks in a worried tone.

“And what kind of trouble did you get into?” David accuses.

Chloe sneers at her stepfather. “None. Stop accusing me of shit.”

“Yeah right. You have a huge black eye and a cut on your cheek,” David points out.

Chloe flinches when Joyce tries to check out the damage. She almost forgot about her fight with Victoria the day before, causing her to have those marks in the first place. “It’s nothing. I tripped over something and hit my eye. Just leave me alone.”

“Chloe, I haven’t seen you since yesterday—“

“Like you care,” Chloe spits out. “If you’re not at work, you’re here playing wife with step-ass. Life was better when Rachel was here and I _actually_ had a purpose to leave the house aside from hanging missing posters and making sure her case stays relevant. Everyone gave up on her and decided it was best to move on, but not me. She’s out there somewhere.”

David scoffs. “You get in all sorts of trouble with Amber and you want to find her again to get in even _more_ trouble?”

“No, I want to find her so we can _get the fuck out of here!_ ”

“You want to leave Arcadia Bay with no job, no money, and no functional car? Do you even know—“

“ _I don’t care!_ I rather be _homeless_ than to live here! It hasn’t even been a home since my dad died!” Chloe roars. “Ever since you waltzed in uninvited, I haven’t even felt safe. And then you try to get me to get along with you and it goes to shit because I got myself kicked out of school?”

“That’s _enough_ , from the both of you!” Joyce exclaims, getting both of their attention. “It is too late to be arguing. Now that Chloe’s home, let’s go to bed.”

“Gladly,” Chloe growls through gritted teeth, and heads upstairs to her room. She slams the door behind her and exhales loudly. It’s messy in here, just like Nathan’s. She hasn’t even noticed until she went to the fucker’s room earlier. It hasn’t been clean since her dad’s car accident, and even when she tries to keep it clean, it gets messy once again. But she doesn’t need to keep dwelling on her room. 

She should’ve entered through the window, but after witnessing a suicide and getting into some weird hi-jinks with someone she disliked, it drained her of doing another break-in through the window. With a sigh, she gets ready for bed.

The next morning, Chloe wakes up and stretches the kinks out her body before heading to the shower. It should be quiet around here since her mom had an early shift and step-shit is obviously at work. After her shower, she wraps her pirate towel around her armpits and goes to her room. She dries her hair with one of her t-shirts and checks her phone, ignoring notifications about Kate’s death and the weather. 

Not having much friends around here makes the experience of life a lot more boring. When Rachel disappeared, Chloe only had herself and that was it. She couldn’t say she found a friend in Victoria (if at all) but somehow, their investigating and taking cracks at each other isn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Plus, the girl is kind of funny in shades. And she’ll be useful due to her connections with the Prescotts.

Chloe’s hands move on their own and she presses send before realizing what she just did. “For fucks sake.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Victoria wakes up to several messages from Nathan and Chloe.

Nathan: are you up pixie

Price: are you up loser 

Victoria groans a little. She wanted to go to breakfast with Nathan — she needed a Belgian waffle fix before dealing with her social life, but at the same time...she finds herself _wanting_ to do whatever Price has up her sleeve. Oh well, someone’s going to end up disappointed. She sends a quick text back to one person and leaves her room to take a shower. 

Ever since Monday, she hasn’t even cared much about school other than her photography class and maybe a few extra classes. She almost _forgot_ about the video, but she hasn’t forgot about what Dana said to her. There _was_ truth to that. Victoria is only really kind to Taylor and Nathan (and sometimes Courtney but she's working on it), and stops at _nothing_ to defend them, but since Chloe showed her that photo her loyalty with Nathan has fledged a little. She _could_ spare to be nicer, but not to everyone. She isn’t getting all soft on the entire student body because Dana guilt tripped her once.

And what does Dana give a shit anyway? Victoria doesn’t like her and Dana has made it very clear that she doesn’t like Victoria either. 

When she finishes getting dressed she walks out the same time Max steps out of her room. Victoria didn’t want to encounter anyone so she ignores Max and leaves through the other exit, right after checking her message notification and goes to the parking lot to see what’s going on. “What the fuck do you have me doing on this fine morning?”

“I need a breakfast buddy,” Nathan replies. “Plus you’ve been MIA since Monday. What happened between you and Price?”

“She got all defensive and said you pulled a gun on her. Then I said she was lying and we got into this argument that turned into a fist fight. Nothing big.” There were other things she was missing, like the previous day, but she keeps her mouth shut. “I'm making sure that bitch keeps her mouth shut.”

“Someone needs to put a muzzle on that bitch.”

“Indeed.” There’s some silence on the way to the diner. When they enter the diner, Nathan gets a seat nearby the resident drug dealer, either knowingly or unknowingly to Nathan. Victoria didn’t want to be bothered with that low life. She already had her fix for the week and she barely even touched it since Monday. 

“Well if it isn’t the rich kids,” Joyce quips, with a customer service smile that reminded Victoria of Chloe. She always knew Joyce was Chloe’s mother but she didn’t see the striking resemblance until now. “The usual?”

“ _Definitely,_ ” Victoria replies as she watches Joyce pour two cups of coffee. “Nate? How about you?”

“Yeah, the us’.”

As soon as the waitress keeps it moving, Victoria grabs a wet napkin and wipes the table around her. “It’s a little sticky today.”

“It’s sticky everyday.”

“More than usual is what I mean,” she says. “So what’s been going on with the club? I’ve been too preoccupied with other shit to care. And after Marsh threw herself off the roof, I'm not even sure if we _should_ have a party.”

“Jefferson’s been negotiating with Wells to let us have it. By then he’ll announce the winner of the Everyday Heroes contest and that might be some good news for us all.”

“Yeah,” Victoria scoffs. “Not even sure if I care about winning anymore. I haven’t even talked to Jefferson since Monday, and he pushed me aside to talk to Caulfield.”

Nathan snarls. “She’s a nosy bitch. I don’t know what her deal was but I know she was in that bathroom with me.”

“Which brings my next point...why were you even _in_ the girls bathroom? The boys bathroom wasn’t even that far.” Victoria already knew why but she wanted to see if Nathan would lie or tell the truth.

“I was discussing shit with the Price girl. She wanted money from me and I wasn’t letting her have it. Plus, the boys bathroom smells like piss. I was _at least_ considerate.”

Victoria chuckles. “It smells like piss because you nasty motherfuckers don’t know how to use the bathroom.”

Nathan rolls his eyes. “Shut up, pixie.”

Victoria hears a throat being cleared from behind her. Sighing, she turns around, expecting the blue haired demon to be behind her. “For fuck’s sake, _Vic._ If you wanted time with your boyfriend you could’ve just said so.”

Victoria’s fists clench in retaliation. “I told you _he’s not my boyfriend_ you—“

Nathan stops her from finishing that sentence. “What the fuck is she even talking about? Have you two been hanging out?”

“Can you children keep it down? I'm trying to eat my beans!” The drug dealer shouts without even looking up.

“Go eat your beans somewhere else Frank,” Chloe retorts. 

“Aw great, just the person I was looking for,” Frank stands up and faces Chloe. “You have my money?”

“I told you I’ll have it—“

“You said that last week, the week before that, and the week before that! I'm starting to think you don’t have my money—“

“Wait a minute, is that Rachel’s bracelet?” Chloe asks, pointing towards Frank’s wrist. “ _What the fuck are you doing with Rachel’s bracelet?_ ”

“You better back the fuck up,” Frank growls, with a small switchblade in his hand.

Just before Frank gets any closer, two plates appear between them. Victoria sighs in temporary relief as she sees her Belgian waffles and three slices of thick cut bacon in front of her being handed to her by another waitress. “Thank you,” she smiles.

Just before she digs in though, Nathan takes the plate. Before she protests, Nathan gives her a nasty stink eye. “Explain yourself.”

“You’re not the only person who cared about Rachel. Now _where’s my fucking money?_ ” Frank asks again.

“Listen Frank, I'll have your money soon,” Chloe explains. “I'm just in a bit of a pickle. You have to be patient with me.”

Victoria groans. “There’s nothing to explain, now give me back my waffles before—“

“I’ve waited long enough. Now you either have it or you’ll have an early grave—“

“ _Fucking—_ ” Victoria slams her fists onto the table, interrupting everyone around her. She glares at Frank. “How much does she owe you?” She snarls out.

“Victoria, what are you—“

Victoria raises a hand up. “ _Shut up Price._ How much does she owe you?”

Frank gives Victoria a look and then laughs. “This is none of your business—“

Victoria gets up from her seat and folds her arms across her chest. “You’re _threatening_ my friend so obviously it is my business. _Let me not ask again,_ Bowers.”

“We’re friends?” Chloe whispers in Victoria’s ear.

“Just go with it Price. You know what the deal is.”

“It’s three grand,” Frank spits out as a reply. “You think you can pay for that?”

Victoria almost gasps but stands her ground and scoffs. “ _Please._ I get three grand a week.” She rummages through her bag and signs a check for three thousand and two hundred dollars. “There. Three thousand plus interest to get off her back.”

“Great doing business with you,” Frank smirks, flicking the piece of paper. “Consider your debt paid, Price.” 

Frank throws a couple bills on the table and leaves the diner. Victoria looks to Nathan, who has a shell shocked look on his face. “ _You made friends with this stupid bitch?_ ”

“Sure,” Victoria lies. “Now can I have my fucking waffle before it gets cold?”

Nathan doesn’t have much of a choice so he places the plate in front of Victoria. “I thought you were keeping her quiet.”

“She _is_ you dumb idiot. For my quietness, she offered her hand in friendship,” Chloe smirks. “Scoot over,  _friend_ , let’s have breakfast together.”

Victoria’s teeth clench, but she doesn’t have much of a choice but to keep this lie going. She was going to punch Chloe later. “Don’t test me, Price. That money was from my savings account.”

“No one asked you to pay my debt off, Chase,” Chloe whispers.

Victoria stops cutting her waffle to glare at Chloe. “Would you rather die in front of your mother instead?”

“That _asshole_ had Rachel’s bracelet. I don’t give a shit,” Chloe growls. 

“Well I don’t know Chloe. Rachel was full of mystery and hot air,” Victoria retorts, not giving a shit about that answer. “Maybe she had something romantic with that shit head.”

“He’s in his late twenties. That’s fucking gross—"

“Ahem,” Nathan clears his throat. “I'm trying to eat here.”

Victoria takes one bite of her chilled waffle. “Great, it’s cold. Thanks, Nathan.” She barely gives a shit though. A cold waffle is better than no waffle at the moment. Plus Nathan was paying and Victoria was _already_ pissed that she paid off a debt for someone she didn’t exactly care about.

* * *

 

There was something fishy about Frank having that bracelet, so while sitting with two rich idiots, Chloe hasn’t thought about anything else. There must be _something_ inside that RV to tell her exactly what it is, but he already drove off. Thankfully, Chloe knows Frank is predictable and probably went to the beach or the old saw mill that burned down three years ago and hasn’t recovered since then.

When Nathan pays for everyone’s breakfasts (besides Chloe but she already had money in her pocket) she grabs Victoria’s wrist. “Mind if I steal your girlfriend for like...the _day_?” Before Nathan could even answer, she pulls Victoria over to her car. 

“What the fuck is your deal, Chloe Price?” Victoria shouts, removing her wrist from Chloe’s grip. 

“Were you _even_ going to hang out with him for the day?”

“No, but can I get a fucking warning first? And I keep telling you that Nathan _isn’t my boyfriend!_ ” Victoria argues. “Shit! What else can I say to _convince_ you?”

“Jesus Christ, take a joke Victoria.” Chloe chuckles on her way to the driver’s seat. When she enters and realizes that Victoria hasn’t entered the car, she rolls down her window and stares at the fuming girl. “Well? Are you coming? We got nosy shit to do.”

Victoria huffs as she enters the passenger's seat. “Don’t even _think_ about doing the child lock again.”

“Just for that.” Chloe enables the child lock with a smirk.

“I hope you jump off a cliff,” Victoria grumbles.

“Yikes, a girl already killed herself and you’re wishing _death_ on me?”

“I would gladly replace you with Kate Marsh. At least she kept to herself and minded her own business.”

“Is _that_  what you say to your friends?” Chloe inquires, mockingly putting a hand on her heart for dramatics. “I can see why even your friends don’t like you.”

“Oh my god Price. We’re _not_ friends. Never was and never will be.”

“Glad we’re on the same page,” Chloe says, with a bitch grin, then drives to the way of the beach. She isn’t even hurt by that. There’s so much more concerning Frank and Rachel that she needs to know so being bothered by Victoria is the last thing on her mind.

Victoria breaks the ten minute long silence. “Where the fuck are we even going?”

“We’re looking for Frank,” Chloe replies. “He has Rachel’s bracelet. She never gave that bracelet to _anyone_ , not even me.”

“Then you must not be that special for her to give it to you,” Victoria says back, with a shrug.

Chloe grips the steering wheel. She was already angry about seeing Rachel’s bracelet (which was Rachel’s only connection to Sera, her biological mom) and Victoria being her bitchy self is not helping matters. “Can you shut the fuck up for the next hour?”

“I don’t know _how_ you expect me to shut up when you’re the one speaking to me. And like I said before, maybe she had something special with that drug dealer. It wouldn’t surprise me for Rachel to play you. She played _everyone_ like a fucking game of chess. You’re _not_ a special case.”

“This is _my_ fucking car, so if I say shut up, then I want you to shut up,” Chloe retorts. “And she was my girlfriend. Does that mean _anything_ to you?”

“ _I'm_ trying to figure out why you keep saying she’s your girlfriend if she did not disclose of her location when she supposedly disappeared, and she gave her bracelet to a drug dealer instead of _you_!” Victoria argues back. “But since you want me to shut up that’s fine too. Just don’t talk to me.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Chloe finishes. She drives to the beach in complete silence, never taking her eyes off the road. She would’ve went with the saw mill, but Chloe heavily doubts that. That’s where old illegal concerts used to be, and ever since it burned down, it holds a lot of unsavory memories of dealing with Damon Merrick. The beach however, she knew was Frank’s favorite hangout spot because it’s the only place in Arcadia Bay that not a lot of people inhabit until the summer. The RV is nearby, which means Frank’s either out of his truck or taking a break inside. Whichever it is, his dog is probably in there. “Shit, I forgot about his stupid dog. You got a plan?” Victoria stays quiet. “ _This_ is the part where you _talk,_ ” Chloe says, rolling her eyes.

“I can just let Pompidou bite the crap outta you for the shit you said in the truck,” Victoria says nonchalantly. 

“ _Oh fuck you,_ ” Chloe retorts.

“No fucking thanks.”

Suddenly, they hear ruckus from inside the RV. Victoria suddenly grabs Chloe’s wrist and they hide behind a large garbage can. Frank steps outside and stretches his body. His dog steps out with him, and after some words and petting involved, they go a different direction. After they’re far from eyeshot, Victoria pulls Chloe towards the RV. She finds the door unlocked and opens it.

“What the hell—“

“ _Get in there!_ ” Victoria hisses, pushing Chloe inside the recreational vehicle. 

When they enter the RV, the smell of piss hits their noses. “For fuck’s sake, it _still_ smells like piss,” Chloe gags.

Victoria snarls from the smell. “I can’t believe I'm saying this, but the boys' bathroom is so much better.”

“Look inside his room and I’ll look around here,” Chloe orders. “And also for lookout just in case they come back.”

Victoria nods once and heads towards the back of the RV. Chloe starts looking around the place, ignoring the signed check on the table. There’s so much junk (including his little contact book) and she can’t find anything pertaining to his connection with Rachel. However, after a passing thought she takes pictures of the contacts in his book and his name log. The asshole used dog breeds as code names. Of course.

Right when Chloe is about to call this a close, Victoria steps out with a book in her hand. “You gotta see this.”


	4. emotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been having some real issues with the newest iOS update so this chapter is unedited. oh well.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Victoria backs up a little upon entering the aft of the RV. The smell of piss and other bodily fluids hits her nose, and she almost throws up in retaliation. She pulls her shirt over her nose and starts investigating the room for any evidence concerning Rachel’s involvement with the drug dealer.

She’s still very mad that she lost her allowance to paying off Chloe’s debt. She may have emergency money, sure, but she never uses that...which is why she was pissed at Chloe inside the car. If it were different, Victoria would’ve never got under Chloe’s skin like that...mostly because it wasn’t her place to.

Aside from that bracelet, there’s nothing about Rachel inside this room. She sighs, until she sees a rugged ventilation area. She retrieves a knife she saw during her search and breaks it open, finding a folder. She places it on the bed and opens it, finding several photos of Rachel and Frank together. Forgetting about the smells, her shirt drops down and her mouth hangs wide open. The first thought was Rachel being a serial cheater and never telling Chloe about it. The second thought was that her gut feeling was right. She shouldn’t even be that surprised — it’s not the first time Rachel has used people for her own expenses. Victoria bets that Chloe’s been used for over three years and her disappearance may be a huge red herring to hide some other truth. Rachel running away didn’t add up because Rachel isn’t low key and she would leave Arcadia Bay with a huge bang. 

There were also two letters that Victoria skimmed through. One implied their previous relationship and another letter was practically a breakup letter. Sighing, Victoria shuffles it together and opens the door just as Chloe was about to enter. “You gotta see this.”

Chloe narrows her eyes. Victoria groans and pulls Chloe out of the RV. She locks it behind her and runs towards the truck. Chloe grabs the folder once they get inside and looks at the pictures and letters. “That fucking—fuck!” Chloe shouts. “Rachel was banging Frank, and straight up lied to my face! Why didn’t she say anything?”

“...maybe she knew how you’d react?” Victoria suggests. “Seriously, Chloe, you’re freaking out…”

“Fuck that!” Chloe cries. “Huh, just another person who shits all over me, as always. Why does everybody in my life let me down? Max comes back to town after five years and I have yet to get a heads up, my mother is all over an entitled war veteran and Rachel betrays me...and it all started with my fucking dad and his willingness to pick my mom up, just to get killed!”

Victoria furrows her eyebrows. “I...You can’t put unrealistic expectations on people like that, Chloe. Especially if they’re your loved ones. That’s how you lose people.”

“What do you know?” Chloe yells back. “You know what? Fuck this! Fuck you, fuck my mom, fuck Maxine Caulfield, and fuck Rachel! Fuck everybody in this shitty town!”

“What the fuck do I have to do with this? I just came with you in this stupid goose chase to find your stupid ass girlfriend!” Victoria exclaims. “I don’t give a fuck about what Rachel does or who she fucks in her spare time! Ever since that tea incident, Rachel’s been dead to me!”

“Then why the fuck are you doing this? Huh? If you didn’t care about Rachel, then why did you show me this in the first place?”

“Because you needed to. You’re nineteen years old, Chloe Price,” Victoria retorts. “You can’t sit here and blame everyone, including myself who wasn’t even a part of your life until recently, for everything wrong in your shitty life.”

“Then who is to blame huh? The car that killed my dad?”

“How about realizing that sometimes it isn’t anyone’s fault?” Victoria suggests. “Shit happens. People are monsters. Things happen for a reason and no reason…” she sighs a little and runs a hand through her hair. She continues to talk but in a softer tone. “Chloe. I know this is hard to look at, but Rachel isn’t who you seem. She isn’t an angel. She’s a shitty human being like the rest of us, and regardless of what she did with Frank or not, that was probably her business only. I agree, she should’ve told you, but...it happened. Accept it and move on.”

“I can’t,” Chloe cries, her lip quivering as she lets her tears fall. “She was everything to me and she did this! She fucking blew up when her father told one little fib about her origins and then she just lied to me like this?”

“I—wait what?”

“Of course you didn’t know that. You faked being her friend until she slipped tranquilizers in your tea.”

“I actually did like Rachel,” Victoria defends. “I fucking had a crush on her for Pete’s sake. Don’t ever say that I was a fake friend to anyone. If you’re my friend, you’re my friend...and I mean that shit. But what Rachel did was unforgivable. She sabotaged my chances of being on stage because she wasn’t willing to ride out her suspension. I didn’t even give a shit about the play that much and if you actually convinced me long enough I would’ve gave that shit to Rachel but no. You failed and Rachel drugged me. I don’t know if that was your intention but I never forgave Rachel and I never forgave you either.”

There’s a long silence, unnerving Victoria to say something but she doesn’t. She couldn’t disturb anyone after a really intense breakdown like that. She couldn’t blame Chloe for feeling like that, especially since it’s the same way she felt when she saw that picture a few days ago and finding out that Rachel slipped drugs in her tea three years ago. But what she couldn’t let Chloe say was almost everything else. Despite knowing next to nothing about Chloe Price, Victoria knew some of it. What she can basically see is that Chloe has had a very heartbreaking upbringing and it would explain why she is the way she is. She understood.

Chloe pulls up in front of the school moments later. There’s even more silence. “I know you’re sad but this only proves that there’s something more to this whole investigation. I think...whether Rachel’s alive or not, there’s another truth. Kate kills herself after one party and she wasn’t even completely depressed before, Rachel hasn’t been seen for six months…we might have something here. We both found out some terrible things about the ones closest to us, but we can’t stop now, not when we’re so close to finding out the truth.”

“You’re right,” Chloe sniffles. “Thanks, Victoria.”

“Hey, what are fake friends for?” Victoria smirks.

Chloe smirks back. “You may be a bitch but we make a good team.”

“You’re a bitch too in your own right,” Victoria replies. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

“Hey, i’m not denying shit.”

Victoria exits the car seconds later. “And pull your head out of your fucking ass Price. We got work to do.”

“Aye aye, Captain Bitch-O,” Chloe replies.

Victoria gives Chloe the finger as she laughs and drives away. Turning around, she walks up the stairs. “What was Victoria doing near Chloe’s truck?” She hears Justin whisper to his stoner friend she forgot the name of.

Victoria turns to glare at Justin. “You fail at whispering, Williams.”

“I thought people like us were not worthy hanging out with you,” Justin says sarcastically.

“Yeah, people like you. Price doesn’t count because she’s no longer a student. Now mind your business before I make sure you never graduate from this stupid school.”

“Resorting to empty threats now, Chase?” 

“You think i’m laughing, Williams?”

Justin raises his hands in defeat. Victoria rolls her eyes and continues her trek to the dorms. She figures she could pretend that she gives a shit about the Vortex Club for a few hours. When she checks the group chat that she muted back on Monday, there were so many missed messages from everyone involved but after a quick skim through, the party is still on and some of the club members are planning on going to Kate’s funeral next week. Nathan must have took over while Victoria was off playing detective.

After entering the dorms, she notices two adults emerging from Kate’s dormitory with boxes of her stuff. They look like her parents so she makes a hasty retreat to her room to pick up a few things and then she’ll go to Taylor’s. Maybe she should text Taylor first.

Victoria: hey are you busy? I’m kind of bored now that class is cancelled

She picks up her last stash of weed and waits for a response. Instead she gets a notification from the group chat.

Courtney: has anyone heard from victoria lately?

Dana: no she’s been mia

Juliet: can we keep it that way?

Victoria growls as she kicks Watson out of the group chat. Dana probably let her back in without her knowing. She kicked Juliet out of spite on Monday and didn’t care if people let her back in, but now she will make sure it’s a perma-ban as long as she’s part of the club.

Victoria: i’m right here you shits I just muted the gc for a few days. nathan should be taking care of the party until i say so, which is unlikely.

She wants to mute the chat once again but then a message stops her.

Nathan: having fun with your new bff?

Courtney: victoria has a new bff?

Hayden: omfg nate let it go

Zach: wait what I thought taylor was her bff

Courtney: who’s victorias new bff

Victoria decides that was enough and mutes the group chat once again. She relaxes until she gets a text back from Taylor.

Taylor: yeah i’m in my room.

Victoria springs up from her chair and goes straight to Taylor’s dorm. She ignores everything else, considering that no one else is even giving her the time of day, and doesn’t even knock on Taylor’s door before entering. “Fuck. I am so stressed and class isn’t even in session.”

“Where have you been lately anyways?” Taylor asks.

Victoria takes a deep breath. “If I tell you, it stays in this room. Got it?”

Taylor nods. “Scout’s honor.”

Victoria smirks a little. “You’re a fucking dork.” She retrieves her joint and starts smoking immediately, knowing Taylor would ask for some eventually. “So this whole mess started on Monday…”

* * *

 

Chloe doesn’t go home after dropping Victoria off. Instead, she goes back around to the junkyard, hoping to clear her head after finding out what she just found out.

Rachel was in a relationship with Frank for a while before she disappeared. Chloe thought she meant something to Rachel, but apparently not since Frank had her bracelet. What else has Rachel been hiding from her? There’s no doubt that Rachel has always been a mystery, but there are some things that are making Chloe see Rachel a lot more differently.

Rachel hated it when she found her father kissing Sera even before they revealed Sera’s importance and burned an entire forest down in anger. As far as she knows, Rachel has never responded well to liars, so why would she lie to Chloe? 

Suddenly, Chloe remembers several months ago when Rachel had found out Sera was serving time in prison for a drug charge but had been released when they found out she was framed. James told Rachel he was behind it and was also involved in trying to making Sera disappear back in 2010. After Sera was almost overdosed, she swore Chloe to never tell and she never did tell, but after Sera’s framing, all bets were off.

Rachel figured out that Chloe lied and she blew up. Chloe never wanted Rachel to know the truth about what James did because it would further sever her relationship with her dad, and with someone who lost a dad way before they started having fights, she thought it would be best for Rachel to stay away from the truth.

Needless to say, Rachel didn’t talk to Chloe for weeks. It felt like a breakup and Chloe found herself depressed during those few weeks of radio silence. She already experienced that with Max so Rachel doing it is even worse. Rachel eventually forgave Chloe, or at least pretended to because despite starting to talk again, their relationship took a heavy strain. Rachel rarely wanted to do anything with Chloe, and even a simple hug and kiss was too much. She claimed to have more focus on school, but really it was to hang out with Frank and Chloe never knew until just now.

Chloe goes inside the hideout and looks around, her eyes welling with tears as memories flash before her eyes. So many smoke sessions, sleepovers, and hi-jinks, along with a lot of planning concerning their big move-out once Rachel graduated from Blackwell. Even the graffiti seemed fresh in Chloe’s mind. She growls to herself and knocks a couple things down, only to find a crumpled up piece of paper. She unravels it and reads it silently.

C.

You can tell how much I want you to read this letter since I've been dragging my ass to give it to you. Maybe I just want you to find it when i'm not around so we never have to talk about it. And I don't want you to hate me. Where to start?

I met somebody recently who's so different from the lame Vortex Club snobs. I know you'll have a meltdown when I tell you and think he's gross, but I swear he's wise and unconventional. Kind of scary, not in a “bad boy” way. He's just experienced some serious shit. Yes, i'm kinda obsessed with him. I won't blame you for freaking.

Maybe I know you're right and this just has to be my secret.

I hate not sharing this with you except I know you'd give me the stink eye and grill me for every stupid detail. If I even told you that last night we hooked up near campus—

It stops there, but Chloe can basically understand what’s going on. This must be a different person because she couldn’t be talking about Frank. After the shit she read earlier, it had to be someone else. Rachel was seeing multiple people behind Chloe’s back, and even before she disappeared, she just mentioned going to Vortex Club parties and seeing this photographer for headshots. However, Chloe never saw those pictures and Rachel kept most details to herself.

Chloe folds the paper up and puts it in her pocket. She hated Rachel for lying, but she knew Rachel is the one person that makes her want to live anymore. After her disappearance, Chloe had recurring suicidal thoughts and that hasn’t happened since her father’s untimely death and Max’s moving. They haven’t even occurred because she rather solve Nathan’s little crime than to bother with her soiled thoughts but it’s still there.

But she knew her feelings are irrelevant now that there’s more information about Rachel than ever before. She has to live with it for now and solve the case.

Chloe goes back home and finds an old cork board. With the little bit of information she got from Frank’s logbook and the pictures linking Rachel’s relationship with Frank, she might have something, but she needs more. She knew her stepfather kept tabs on other people, including Rachel (that usually included Rachel getting in trouble with Wells often) so maybe she can look down there. He should still be at work so she goes to the garage and cracks his computer to find all of his investigative files on Rachel, Kate, Nathan, and much to her chagrin, Max.

She barely even knew it was Max until she did a double take. She still looks like a dork to this day and Chloe finds herself missing her even more.

Somehow, step-shit had coordinates of everything and everyone’s whereabouts, and also had extensive pictures and locations of Kate after the Vortex Club party. He’s been investigating the school for a long time. If Chloe didn’t hate him so much, she would’ve joined him for this investigation instead of only relying on Victoria for everything. Victoria was extremely savvy and passionate but she’s still a bitch that Chloe didn’t like very well, and she still considers Nathan a friend. But who knows, she might just be double timing him for now.

She still needed a lot more substantial info, like if Nathan really drugged Kate where did he get the drugs from. She has a gut feeling that it’s Frank, but just in case. Also there might be something in the asshole’s files. Those were all the way at Blackwell, and Chloe grinds her teeth realizing that she has to break in both Wells’ office and Nathan’s room to find such evidence. Nathan’s room is pretty easy since Victoria has all access to his room, being his friend and all, but the principal’s office may be a challenge. When he’s not in his office, he’s in his room and the school has a security system so if anyone were to break in, Wells and security would be notified...so the only other chance is to do it during school hours but obviously, she couldn’t do that. There’s the idea of stealing David’s keys but she highly doubts that Wells would trust David with a key to his office. He’d trust Samuel the custodian a lot more.

Getting the keys from him though is kind of a challenge because he always keeps his pair of keys physically on him. Chloe could sneak inside the custodial office after hours but that would be hard so maybe she needed someone else to retrieve the keys by tonight.

* * *

 

“So...you’re playing detective with Chloe Price not only to find out what happened to Rachel but to also find out why Nathan’s been acting weird?” Taylor recalls.

“And probably wonder what happened during that wild party on the fourth, which is the recent event in which Nathan disappeared with someone,” Victoria adds in. “It’s been a stressful week trying to be a double agent...and I had to lie to Nathan about Chloe being my friend. We still don’t like each other so…we’re not exactly friends...but I feel like I know things that not even her friends knew…”

Victoria takes another hit and passes it to Taylor. “I don’t know Vic,” Taylor grimaces after taking her hit. “I understand wanting to do this to find out about Nate but you hate Rachel...and Kate.”

“I know. It’s not for any of those bitches. I just...ever since the year started he’s been acting weird and distant. In one month he managed to curse out a teacher, throw a desk across the room, and put firecrackers in the boys bathroom. Can I be a little concerned for my best friend?” 

“Yeah but...maybe there’s a reason why he’s not telling us what he’s up to?”

Victoria sighs deeply. Taylor didn’t understand even when she explained everything in excruciating detail. She didn’t even leave out Rachel’s infidelity, or whatever it was. “Ever since Rachel disappeared, there’s been a kind of sinister aura around this place. I just...can’t put my finger on it but when Chloe took me to that junkyard up north, that’s when I noticed it even more. Maybe it’s just me. Plus, Kate died and while we don’t know why, that party might have something to do with it.”

“Actually, someone else filmed Kate at that party and posted it on YouTube. It’s unlisted but the entire school knew about it…”

“Are you kidding me? Who else would film that?”

“Wells was trying to figure it out during some investigation. Also her parents got a hold of it and sent her some really bad messages about it. She left a note in her room before she jumped off the roof, detailing on what was going on through her mind. It was kind of sad to read.” 

“Yeah I bet.” 

“Are you gonna go to her funeral next week? Some of the Vortex Club members mentioned wanting to go, especially Dana. Juliet might go for some story, I bet. She never cared about Kate.”

“And neither did you,” Victoria replies. “Neither did I either. I’m not gonna stop people from going to a funeral but...I don’t think a lot of people gave a shit about her. I was seconds away from posting that video and I have Chloe to thank for making me not responsible for that...but i’m still responsible for her death. I was cruel to her for so long because of her religious schtick when I could’ve just left her alone. I don’t think I should go. No one from this school should go. I know it sounds harsh but…”

“No, I understand,” Taylor replies. “Now that i'm really thinking about it, Max should be the only person to go. Maybe even Alyssa or Stella. But everyone else doesn’t. And whatever you’re doing with Price, be careful.”

“I am careful,” Victoria assures. “Don’t worry.”

“Are you at least going to the party tomorrow night? Jefferson’s going to announce the winner of the Everyday Heroes contest and I bet it’s just gonna be some pretentious student of his, like Max and her dumb camera.”

“Caulfield didn’t submit a photo, last time I checked,” Victoria says matter of factly. She knew after eavesdropping on Jefferson’s conversation with Max. “Honestly, I’ll be surprised if any of us win. I haven’t really swindled my way into Jefferson’s good hands since Monday and I don’t know. It would be great to get out of Arcadia Bay for a weekend.” Victoria dips the finished joint in an old cup of water and starts to get up. “I’m gonna go take a walk. Maybe I should wash up to get the stank of weed off me first.”

Taylor only waves as a reply as Victoria leaves the room. A trail of smoke leaves the room as she steps out but she shuts the door as quick as she opens it. She inhaled the good scent of air before heading to her room and getting ready for a shower. Instead of wearing her usual fancy clothes she opts for a workout shirt and a pair of leggings with some sneakers. It’s been a while since she’s worn her activewear but she’s been active enough when she’s running off with Price playing detective.

When she exits the room, she sees Max walking towards her room. “Lamefield! Let’s talk in your room.”

Max suddenly jumps a couple feet. “Oh, it’s you.”

Victoria snorts. “Yeah, it’s me. Come on, open the door, daylight is wading.” Max opens the door without another word. When she enters the room, Victoria follows right behind her and closes it. “What is your damage, Maxine Caulfield?”

Max furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “I don’t follow.”

“When’s the last time you talked to your childhood friend, Caulfield?” She asks, tilting her head to the side.

“...are you talking about Chloe?”

“Who else would I be talking about, Shitfield?” Victoria says sardonically. “Yes i’m talking about Chioe. For fucks sake, if I knew you would play games with me I should’ve went with the punchline instead of ringing around the bush.”

“I don’t know, theoretically it’s been three years,” Max replies. “Why would you even ask? I wasn’t aware you even knew of Chloe.”

“It’s not that hard to miss the blue hair, dumbass,” Victoria says. “But you didn’t know that because you’re too much of a chickenshit to check up on her. Shit, I didn’t think I had a valid reason to hate you but now I do. You’re not a good friend.”

“You have no room to assume that i’m a bad friend when you treat everyone here like they’re a piece of gum stick to the bottom of your shoe!” Max exclaims. “What have I ever done to you that made you so angry with me from the jump?”

“You irritate me,” Victoria replies. “You don’t even recognize your own fucking talent to submit a photo to a contest, and you spend all your times taking useless selfies. Why the fuck would you waste your time attending this fucking school if you’re not gonna at least apply yourself?”

“Such valid reasons,” Max says sarcastically. “Just admit you’re jealous and get out of my room.”

“How about I knock some sense into you instead of humoring ‘cause you have nothing for me to be jealous about,” Victoria suggests. “Talk to your friends. Keep them close, Lamefield. They exist until they don’t. That was the case for Kate Marsh so don’t do that to Chloe. She had a breakdown just now because she found out her disappeared ex cheated on her and she’s still hurt that you haven’t even contacted her for five years and still won’t do it now that you’re back in town.”

“What? Rachel was her girlfriend?” Max inquires. 

“You literally didn’t hear what I said before any of that? Why do I even bother…” 

“I didn’t even know Rachel was her girlfriend—“

“Yeah, because you were too busy doing god knows what in Seattle to even bother to make a status update.” Victoria steps in closer and narrows her eyes. “If you don’t call her by the end of the week, you’re gonna wish you went back to Seattle. Do I make myself clear?”

“Fine, but i'm not doing this for you.”

“I don’t care who you do it for,” Victoria snorts. “I’m just kicking you in the ass to actually do it. The girl is crying over a dumb whore and she doesn’t have anyone by her side. And if you do decide to talk to her, don’t tell her I sent you. I rather not deal with the fallout of interfering with Price’s personal life anyway.”

“I didn’t even know you and Chloe hung out together. I wouldn’t imagine her as your type of people to hang out with.”

Victoria shrugs. She’ll give Max that because it’s true. Victoria rarely talked to anyone who wasn’t Taylor or Nathan. “Let’s just say, we found a common ground.”

“Ok...uh, I heard Mr. Jefferson is going to announce the Everyday Heroes winner at the Vortex Club party tomorrow night. I didn’t enter but whoever wins not only gets to go to San Francisco but also party hard at one of your parties so it should be a good weekend for them.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Victoria turns around to leave the room when Max stops her. “Thanks for giving me that push to talk to Chloe. I needed it, especially now that i’m kind of alone. After Kate died, I only had Warren to talk to but he’s been distant and i’m going to Kate’s funeral next week so her parents want me to deliver the eulogy. But I can’t write for shit and despite being one of Kate’s few friends, I never really understood her like that. I would bullshit the eulogy but—“

“—she doesn’t deserve that.” Victoria even agreed with that. “Just...write from the heart, Max. Highlight her achievements and whatever. I think you knew her better than anyone else at this school. In fact, you’re the only one who deserves to be at her funeral. Everyone else is going for posterity.”

“That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Max says.

Victoria can feel Max smiling behind her. “For fuck’s sake Maxine. I’m not a sociopath. I can be nice. I just don’t give a shit about others to be nice to them. Don’t mention that to anyone either though.”

“My lips are sealed.” Victoria groans as she hears Max giggling. She leaves the room before she has to hear more of Max’s giggling for the day.

When Victoria reaches outside, she narrowly misses a can of paint falling from the top of some scaffolding to the floor. Her white sneakers got a bit of paint but luckily the paint blends in with her white sneakers. Still, she was pissed. “What the hell, Samuel?”

“My apologies, Victoria,” Samuel says with a guilty look.

She sighs a little. “Just...be a little more careful next time...si’l vous plait.”

“I’m sensing a different aura from you...it seems like a lot is on your mind…”

Shit. Why was her school custodian so perceptive? “Uh, you can say that.” A lot is on her mind. From Rachel’s secrets to Chloe’s breakdown and Nathan’s shady side job, Victoria has thought about nothing else but. She hasn’t even cared about the Vortex Club or even about Kate lately. “Um...since you’re kind of a...psychic or something, have you noticed something different about Nathan?”

“Ever since Rachel’s disappearance he’s a lot more hostile towards the students...and me as well,” Samuel comments. “It seems like he’s compensating for something deeper by projecting it out on other people.”

“Hmph.” 

“And perhaps you might have done the same?”

Victoria bites her lip cautiously. “I just...I want to be a photographer but clearly Max and everyone else in the art program are better than me. I don’t think I can ever compare to them. If there was some other contest, I probably would’ve won last place.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You and one small ass army,” Victoria snorts. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Talking about her insecurities always puts her in a mood and she rather not deal with that. “Have you ever noticed Rachel sneaking off before she disappeared?”

“I always see her getting into some recreational vehicle.”

Bingo, Victoria thinks. Samuel knew that Rachel was sneaking off somewhere. “Uh, thanks I guess. I didn’t mean for this to turn into an interrogation.”

“That’s fine. Most of the students don’t even talk to me except for Max and Kate. God bless her soul. Anyway, have a nice day Victoria.”

Victoria purses her lips. She merely waves to Samuel as he walks off. The keys are jingling on his right hip and Victoria has half a mind to take it when he’s not looking, but she has other matters to take care of, like this walk.

She walks five blocks when she gets a text.

Chloe: check your bff’s room for clues I got an idea

Victoria: did it hurt? :)

Chloe: just do it!

Chloe: and no emoji bitch


	5. calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 5/27: chapter edited. I’ll be posting every now and then for any fic that I finished (or mostly finished) so I can finish any unfinished fics that I want to publish. i’m also taking my writing more seriously and writing novels instead of fanfic. writing has always been a dream career for me since I was sixteen (i’m 25 so take a wild guess on how long the dream’s been alive) and i’m not terrible at it so I might as well go big...or go home

Chloe waits patiently by Nathan’s dorm room for lookout. She would’ve swiped Samuel’s keys earlier but he keeps his keys close to him and plus, she didn’t want Nathan to walk by and find Victoria rummaging inside her room. She checks her phone, only to see a pending message from a contact she hasn’t saved into her phone.

Unknown: Hey Chloe. It’s Max. Can we talk sometime this week?

Chloe widens her eyes as Victoria exits the room, waving a small bag with a flip phone inside, along with a piece of paper. “Hey, Price, we got the goods.”

“Max just texted me,” Chloe whispers.

Victoria pockets Nathan’s secret phone and raises both eyebrows. “She did?”

“Uh yeah, she wants to talk,” Chloe replies.

“Then _respond_ you dummy,” Victoria replies. “Tell her you want to talk to her too. Maybe tonight or something. I don’t care. We can continue our investigation another day. Plus you need Samuel’s keys to get in Wells’ office and that isn’t very easy.”

“Doesn’t Wells have a spare key somewhere in the office?” Chloe asks to herself.

“Doubt it. That asswhipe doesn’t trust a lot of people in his office. He fears we might stumble upon his whiskey collection but we all know about it. Nathan talks about it like it’s Wells’ prized possession. Plus Nathan took a bottle and we got wasted this one night. We still need Samuel’s keys and I think I may have gained a little bit of his trust just by talking to him.”

“Then go get his keys. It should be easy for you.”

“What am I supposed to do, ask him for it? Are you _stupid_?”

“No, _you’re_ the stupid one,” Chloe remarks. “Swipe it when he’s not looking. Swiper yes swiping.”

“For fucks sake Chloe,” Victoria laughs. “Did you _have_ to make that reference?”

“Yes...yes I did. But not now. He’s still in his office so we should do this tonight. I’ll text you when the coast is clear.”

“Mhmm, now are you gonna talk to Max? I think she’s upstairs.”

“What? No. I can’t talk to her now.”

“Now or never, Chlo,” Victoria shrugs. “Unless you got plans.”

“Yes I do. I’m trying to connect the fucking dots on this case like Dana Scully...or Sherlock Holmes,” Chloe replies sardonically. “You on the other hand are as useless as John Watson.”

“Watson wasn’t useless. And we’re not solving anything paranormal so saying you’re Scully is kind of unorthodox,” Victoria says. “Plus, it was Mulder who ran the show, not Scully.”

Chloe furrows her eyebrows. “Nerd much?”

“Watching the X-Files and Sherlock don’t make me a nerd. Rather...I was a bored child.”

“Are there any _other_ secret things about you I should know about?” Chloe asks, smirking and generally curious.

“Yeah, I don’t like you,” Victoria replies, smirking back.

“Why do you have to be so cruel? After the secrets we shared? The memories we created? Have you no heart?” Chloe mockingly puts a hand over her heart and gives a fake hurt look to Victoria, who couldn’t stop giggling. “Like, jeez, if I knew you would still hate me after this I could’ve stopped this a while ago.”

“Such wonderful acting from the girl who could barely convince the rest of the school she was Ariel’s understudy,” Victoria says. “And before you say anything, my girl Taylor filmed the entire play and was the one who screamed out ‘say yes’.”

Chloe shrugs. “Would have never guessed it was Taylor Christensen who shipped Rachel and me.”

“What’s there to ship if you two were already in a ‘ship?”

“Good point but everyone likes a good relationship.” Both of them start leaving the boys dormitory and reach outside, where the quads are surprisingly busy and full of life considering someone killed themselves right in front of them the previous day. “Oh and the phone?”

Victoria gives Chloe the phone. “If i’m lucky, Samuel might leave his keys out in the open. Sometimes he’s forgetful.”

“Yeah but—“

“Oh, Victoria, I finally—“ Chloe turns around and is suddenly stunned by a familiar face staring right back at her. “Oh, uh—Chloe?”

“‘Sup Maxine?” Chloe replies nervously.

Victoria puts a hand over her face and shakes her head. “For fuck’s sake. I'm gonna make myself look busy to not endure secondhand embarrassment,” she mutters while walking away.

Chloe ignores Victoria, only because she’s completely stunned by Max standing in front of her, not because she said that. The last time Chloe’s seen Max she was burying her dad and Max was already driving away to Seattle never to be seen again. Max only left a tape detailing what happened after the funeral and they tried to keep in contact but that stopped at around 2009. Max looked like she was too busy for Chloe and Chloe was already building her emotional walls and taking it out on others instead of getting the help she needed. Well, she tried but after one session, she stormed out and never went back. She definitely wasn’t ready for Max to come back and even though Victoria already said she was here, Chloe thought she would never bump into Max. Chloe doesn’t go to Blackwell and the students don’t often leave campus unless they go to the diner or an away game. “So how’s it been?” Max asks.

“ _How’s it been?_ Five years of no contact and _that’s_ what you ask me?” Chloe inquires, staring at Max with disbelief.

“What do you want me to ask you?” Max replies, already starting to get a little frustrated and Chloe could see it. “It’s not like you kept in contact either.”

“I texted you many times and I was left on read,” Chloe explains.

“I’m sorry, I was going through it and sometimes you didn’t help,” Max defends. “I made friends and enjoyed Seattle but I left Arcadia Bay at a terrible time and that was not my fault—“

“No, what _was_ your fault is that you stalled the entire time to tell me you were moving, and the most appropriate time you decide to say something was after my dad’s funeral... _on a cassette tape!_ ” Chloe snaps. “Then our conversations never ever last because you were living it up in Seattle while I was severely beat up days after the funeral by Marisa Rogers.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Max snaps back. “And it doesn’t matter how I left. That was five years ago and I didn’t know how to say it.”

“I needed my friend while I tried to get over my dad’s death and you did _nothing_!” Chloe cries. “You didn’t call me, not even once—“

“I’m so sorry, Chloe. I didn’t mean to not answer the phone. I’m serious. I just—“

“You already told me, you made friends and I was coping by having literally _no one_ on my side other than weed. My mom didn’t even wait a whole year to get acquainted and then remarried to a dick, and I was already flunking classes. Rachel was the only person by my side until she disappeared. You had a better life than I did.”

“Fair, but I _never_ forgot about you,” Max defends. “I never forgot about my best friend, even when I did have my own friends.”

“What-the-fuck-ever.”

“Chloe—“

“I’m not exactly forgiving anymore, Maxine,” Chloe says honestly. “I might give you the benefit of the doubt but I can’t forgive right now.”

“I understand. I just want my friend back...can I at least have that?”

“I guess,” Chloe sighs, scratching her nape and looking off to the side, where she watches Victoria waving a set of keys at her with a smirk. _Damn she’s good,_ she thinks. “What are you gonna do differently this time, Max? Are you actually going to keep in touch now that you’re here at some artsy school?”

“Yes,” Max answers flatly. “I am going to keep in contact. I promise you.”

“Ok, good, because despite resenting you for so long, I missed you.”

Max gives Chloe the goofiest grin Chloe’s ever seen. She missed that. “Thank you Chloe.”

* * *

 

It wasn’t until night time when Victoria makes a move. She had Samuel’s keys in her pocket and hoped for the best in terms of finding whatever needs to be found in Wells’ file cabinets. There must be something, anything they’re missing to add into their notes, and she’s going to find out.

She still can’t believe she¡s investigating her best friend. Nathan was always honest and upfront even when he tried so hard to hide the truth. Victoria knew him from the back of his hand...or at least she thought she did. He’s becoming more and more of a stranger nowadays. He’s still pissed off that Victoria befriended Chloe even before they actually did, but telling the truth was not an option. Victoria wasn’t going to say ‘Well Chloe basically dragged me into an impromptu investigation after showing me an incriminating picture of herself on your dorm floor’ and get away with it. She had to lie.

But now, is it _really_ a lie?

Victoria can admit that she and Chloe did find a common ground recently. Victoria also would’ve been pissed if she found out her girlfriend cheated on her, but maybe finding things out about Nathan is just as bad. She’s just keeping it together because she refuses to let others see her when she’s weak and down. She never lets anyone other than Taylor and Nathan to see her shed a tear. She doesn’t share secrets with just anyone. And she doesn’t show kindness to everyone either, even if she knows it would work out in her favor.

But having similar struggles don’t constitute as friends...do they? Chloe doesn’t know about Victoria’s birthday or interests or any of that shit, and Victoria only knows that Chloe’s an emotional lesbian with a shitty stepfather and her mom works at that place she loves so much, no matter how sticky it is. They still _barely_ know each other.

Should that change? Only time will tell.

After getting past a drunken Wells, Victoria goes straight to the main building. She’s about to open the door when a hand touches her shoulder and she jumps five feet in the air.

A loud chuckle makes her anger grow stronger. “You should’ve seen the look on your face!” Chloe laughs.

“You are _so_ lucky I didn’t carry my pepper spray or you would’ve been blinded for hours,” Victoria growls.

“You would pepper spray your friend?”

“No, I’d pepper spray _you_ ,” Victoria clarifies. “And plus we don’t know shit about each other to be friends. You have Maxine, I have Taylor.”

“That’s cold, Victoria Chase,” Chloe shudders.

“Not as cold as this building,” Victoria complains. She opens the secretary’s door then goes straight to the office door. She tries every key except the one she just used. The last one manages to open the door. “Sweet justice,” she says. She scans around, finding Chloe looking inside the lost and found box. “Chloe!”

“You guys lose some interesting stuff,” Chloe smirks. “Oh, here’s that old bandanna I lost in the eighth grade!” Chloe pulls out a bandanna covered in skull and crossbones. “I thought I lost this forever.”

Victoria couldn’t help smiling. “You’re a dork, Chloe. Come on. I got the door open and i’m not trusting it for long.”

“Coming!” Chloe runs inside before Victoria. “Man, I can see why the principal locks this room up. Fancy faux art crap. He must want everybody to know he has money...but no taste. I mean, how can you trust somebody who has a fucking bronze bird in his office? I'm glad I was expelled.”

“Blackwell isn’t that bad in terms of academia. Maybe everything else.”

“I _still_ don’t give a shit.” Chloe then sits on Wells’ chair. “This chair is ugly but is so comfortable I might consider stealing it. The Great Desk Chair Heist. You in, Chase?”

Victoria raises an eyebrow. “You think we can get away with it? It’s a pretty large chair.”

“You think too much.” Chloe turns on the computer. “Now be a Sherlock and find us some clues about Rachel, or Kate, or Nathan...anyone involved in this shit.”

“I’m on it, Watson.” Victoria has been in this office before so she easily finds the permanent records. Abiding by time, she grabs Rachel’s, Kate’s and Nathan’s files. She checks out her own permanent record, because why the hell not? “My record’s so spotless and it’s gonna stay that way.” She puts her file back and then checks out Chloe’s for shits and giggles. “Chloe Elizabeth Price, born March 11th, 1994 in Arcadia Bay.”

“Are you reading my files?”

“Yup. I _knew_ your ass was a Pisces,” Victoria sniggers.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Emotional, petty, huge victim complex, never takes responsibility…” Victoria lists from her knowledge.

Chloe glares at Victoria then shrugs. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

“Self-aware. I like that, Price,” Victoria says. She looks at the files again, and almost laughs. “You were _expelled_ for spray painting Wells’ car?”

“He was getting on my fucking nerves,” Chloe growls.

Victoria rolls her eyes. “You got some serious issues, Price. Sheesh, I can spend all day reading through your permanent record. You failed classes, got caught smoking cigarettes, parking in a handicap spot…”

“You ain’t shit either, Victoria,” Chloe says.

“At least I know how to hide my crimes. Now, did you find anything?”

Chloe shakes her head. Victoria goes back to looking through the permanent records. She finds Max’s record and reads through it. “Of course teachers would say she doesn't talk enough, but who would say she talks too much?” Victoria mutters to herself.

“Vic, you gotta come see this…”

Victoria turns around and goes to the desk to check the computer. There are a couple letters from Wells to the Prescott parents and back, and also incident reports where Madsen and Nathan reported Rachel for having drugs. “What the fuck…?

“Nathan accused Rachel of bringing drugs on campus? And my step-troll went along because he thinks Rachel was a bad influence on me,” Chloe growls.

“Was he wrong?”

Chloe glares at Victoria. “Not now.” She goes back to the files and reads them. They had incriminating evidence of Nathan’s track record since the beginning. “‘Nathan Prescott the Third.’ Oooh, he's so money. And you know the Prescotts dropped _major_ bank to bury Nathan's real file... Look, it reads like a rap sheet---bad grades, teacher complaints, _secret_ probation... But I was expelled?”

“Did you forget that you spray painted Wells’ car?”

“Oh come on! His old ass car needed a touch up,” Chloe smirks. “At least he got it painted in that color.”

“Like your beat up ass truck doesn’t need a _serious_ paint job?”

“You love my truck,” Chloe says. “The Chloemobile hasn’t done anything to you.”

“ _Chloemobile?_ ” Victoria giggles.

“You don’t name your car?”

“I do but not like _that_. My car’s name is Cordelia ‘cause I used to watch Buffy as a kid and she was the character with the same last name as me. Plus, Charisma Carpenter was a total babe.”

“She sure the fuck was.”

“Wait a minute…” Victoria points towards the screen, seeing a bit of a disturbing photo. “Check out that note. Open it.”

“That's just some crazy drawing—“

“That’s not a drawing. I know what a drawing looks like. Just look at it…” Victoria gets even more sick looking at it but she swallows her spit. “‘Rachel in the dark room... Rachel in the dark room…’”

“That’s...fucking disturbing. That just means he has something to do with Rachel missing.”

“Oh Nate,” Victoria sighs. If she wasn’t gonna vomit, she was going to cry but she refuses to let people see her cry. At least, not Chloe or the rest of the student body. “Why was I so blind to not see how truly psychotic he is?”

“He’s your friend,” Chloe reasons. “You were blind to see his true side, just like how I was blind to Rachel’s lying.”

“I don’t think he’s my friend after this. We gotta stomach through this bullshit and find out what is going on, and then get Nathan some fucking help. I’ll help him but i’m definitely not condoning what he’s doing.” Victoria gathers all of the files and fixes the room up so that no one will know they were there. “I’m getting paranoid in here. We should go before someone catches us.”

“I agree—hello, what’s _this_?” Chloe pulls out a Manila envelope.

“Chloe, no time for—“

“ _Five grand_ for a _handicap_ fund?” Chloe gasps. “That joke was never going to build that shit anyway so—“

“Chloe, remember the last time you tried to sneak money up your bra and I automatically knew? Yeah, this is another instance where i’m telling you to drop the money and let’s bail.”

“Dude seriously? You know what I can do with five grand? I already paid off Frank thanks to you. What do you say to a sweet road trip?”

Victoria seriously thinks about it before she replies, “Can I finish school first?”

“ _Pussy_ ,” Chloe groans as she drops the money inside the drawer and follows her.

“I’m the pussy while you’re endorsing stealing. Ok,” Victoria rolls her eyes. “And I _never_ told you that a road trip was a bad idea.”

“In that case—“

“ _No_ ,” Victoria says flatly.

Chloe wraps an arm around Victoria’s shoulders and rubs her knuckles over it. Victoria protests halfheartedly as Chloe’s rubbing gets a little more intense. Victoria manages to push her off and glare at Chloe, before laughing and walking away. She feels several weights being lifted off her shoulders and her laughter becoming less stiff but she hasn’t even  noticed until now. They were just doing stupid shit inside Wells’ office and now they’re play fighting and laughing outside. They would get caught if people actually did their job—

“Make sure you cover the whole perimeter,” Victoria hears Madsen command to a couple guards.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Victoria whispers. Chloe pulls her to a nearby shrub, watching as several guards enter the school. When the last guard goes inside, Chloe gets up and pulls Victoria towards her car. Victoria catches up despite Chloe holding her wrist.

“ _Hey_!” A guard shouts.

Chloe enters the driver’s seat. Victoria doesn’t even hesitate entering the passenger’s seat. Neither of them waste time putting on seatbelts and suddenly pull from the parking lot and drive far away from the school. “Hah! Sayonara mothersuckers! That was hella awesome.”

“That was hella _scary_ ,” Victoria retorts. While she is a runner, the adrenaline from being chased makes her even more tired than being on a runner’s high. “I swear to god if I get in trouble—”

“They’ll probably identify me before they identify you.”

Victoria sighs. “Shit, I can’t go back there. They’ll think I broke in there.”

“Luckily you have a brand spankin’ new bee-eff-eff with a home,” Chloe replies, smirking evilly. “And we get to sort out this bullshit the next day. We’re so close to finding out what the hell is going on here, I can almost taste it.”

“Ew,” Victoria recoils.

Chloe flicks Victoria’s ear. Victoria makes a sound of protest but doesn’t do anything else as she watches the road towards someone else’s home. It takes them a short time to get to Chloe’s home, and even then Chloe suggests they sneak up the window. Sighing, Victoria climbs up the home after Chloe gets a head start. The window’s already open and Chloe easily climbs in. Victoria climbs in right after while Chloe turns on the light to her room. “Your room is worse than Nathan’s.”

“Shut up,” Chloe says. She opens the drawer and tosses an old band tee towards Victoria’s face. “That should be big enough for you.”

Victoria inspects it for a little while. “Firewalk?”

“Best night of my life,” Chloe smiles.

Victoria puts the files on Chloe’s desk. “I don’t even know who those people are.”

“That’s because your a basic bitch.”

“Me, a basic bitch because I don’t know who Firewalk is? _Now_ I know why you and Caulfield were besties. You two think you’re _so_ unique because you don’t like what everyone else likes.”

“I don’t always have that hippie mindset,” Chloe defends. “That’s probably the only indie band I care about. But my music taste varies and sometimes I have style.”

“You’ve been wearing the same shirt and combat boots since Monday.”

“And you don’t wear anything other than Peter Pan shirts,” Chloe retorts. “Anyways, we have a long night so change into that shirt and get comfortable.”

* * *

 

Almost the entire night, both Chloe and Victoria try to find clues but by three in the morning, Chloe hears a sharp inhale, sounding like a snore. She turns around to see Victoria already deep in much needed sleep. Sighing contently, Chloe leaves the computer unattended. She notices that Victoria takes the entire bed to sleep, leaving absolutely nothing for Chloe to sleep on.

“Jesus Christ, Victoria,” she mutters before pushing Victoria to the end of the bed. She climbs in and after a few minutes she falls asleep.

When Chloe wakes up, she finds herself alone on her bed.

“Good morning sunshine,” Victoria greets, a friendly grin on her lips. “While you were sleeping I found a _definite_ location we can check out.”

“Mmm, what time is it exactly?”

“10:11,” Victoria replies. “As I was saying, Nathan left the party and was found at a different place at around 10pm the night he took Kate, thanks to Madsen’s files. I googled what the place looks like and it’s a barn…”

“Did you figure out Nathan’s phone?”

“No, I kind of hacked it in a way. Too many attempts would’ve erased his phone,” Victoria answers. “He made a bunch of texts to Frank. That’s probably where he got all the good shit.”

Chloe hums. She rubs her eyes and widens them to wake herself up. She really looks at the board and then back at Victoria, who’s writing down the address and directions to the location she mentioned earlier. Her hair is standing up and her face is devoid of makeup, and her legs are crossed but still showing a lot of leg. Chloe notices how slender her legs are and how they have a bit of definition after being a runner for a little while. She almost imagines those legs being wrapped around her—

Shit. Is she _really_ fantasizing about Victoria Chase?

“Price, come on, we should get a move on to this location while the day’s wading,” Victoria commands. “And this _fucking_ Vortex party...I don’t even give a shit. I don’t think i’m going.”

“They won’t even miss you,” Chloe quips.

“You’re probably right. I haven’t given a shit about those assholes in _days_.” She gets up and stretches a little. “I need to go back to get properly dressed.”

“Or you can wear some of Rachel’s—“

“Not a chance, Kari Price,” Victoria sneers.

“At least I tried.” Chloe gets up and grabs a towel. She leaves the room to take her shower while Victoria probably puts her clothes back on. Chloe doesn’t take no more than fifteen minutes in the shower and then brushes her teeth for an additional five before leaving the room. When she enters the room again, Victoria is nowhere to be found but she left the Firewalk shirt folded on Chloe’s bed. Then she hears some talking so after getting dressed she listens from the staircase.

“I’m kind of surprised you even _knew_ of Chloe,” she hears her mom say.

“Actually I vaguely knew her when she went to Blackwell,” she hears Victoria say. “We weren’t friends then. We just kind of knew each other.”

“Well, I think that was the case for all of Chloe’s acquaintances until she met Rachel. They were attached at the hip, the both of them. Thick as thieves. David never liked them together but I did. It was _almost_ as if Rachel brought my daughter back...somewhat, in her own way. It’s a shame that she disappeared without a word...and it’s so unlike her.”

“I agree.” Chloe smirks a little at that.

“Wherever she is, I hope she lets Chloe know sometime soon.”

Chloe decides it was time to go downstairs. She would’ve smoked a little to clear her head but she decided not to. Now that they might have a lead on this barn miles away from Arcadia Bay, she needs a clear head. She almost stops when she watches her mother finish cooking with Victoria looking at some of the family photos on the refrigerator. “This was her dad?”

“Yep,” Joyce confirms. “She was _definitely_ a daddy’s girl. When he died it was almost the end of the world for her.”

“I can see that...I could _never_ imagine losing my dad...or my mom either.” There’s some shuffling in the background. “I never seen Chloe _grin_ like that...not even with Amb—Rachel.”

“She has her moments. It was just rare. Most of the time when she’s grinning she just smoked a bowl in her room.” Victoria lets out an audible snort. “We try to get her to stop but...she’s practically an adult now. How can I stop her from making decisions if she’s old enough to understand consequences?”

“Well, my mom used to say ‘I control you until you officially move out the house’ so until I find my own place, her house her rules.”

“I like the way your mom thinks.”

Chloe clears her throat and grimaces. “Hello mom, I have to steal this rich kid for the whole day.”

Joyce raises an eyebrow. “I was wondering why she was here in the first place.”

“We had a long night,” Chloe half lies. “Come on, Victoria. Like you said earlier, the day is wading.”

Victoria waves to Joyce and follows Chloe outside. Chloe starts the car as soon as Victoria climbs inside. “I knew Joyce was your mom, but I still can’t imagine the kind woman making a late breakfast is your mom.”

“Well, she is, and she married a bastard,” Chloe growls.

“If you’re wondering if she told me any embarrassing stories about you, the answer is no,” Victoria comments as they drive further south. “We were talking about Rachel for the most part. Somewhat about you, but mostly Rachel.”

“I heard parts of it.”

It stays silent until they reach the school. Victoria says a short “be right back” and leaves the car to get ready. Chloe takes the time to relax and think about what happened earlier.

She hasn’t had a daydream like that since Rachel. It surprised the hell out of her to even think about someone she was supposed to hate like that. Yeah, they might have found some things to agree on and this investigation may have brought them closer than ever, but does Chloe really consider Victoria anything other than a frenemy? Or maybe an acquaintance? Should she?

There’s just so much wrong with what she was thinking but for some reason it felt right...natural even, like it was supposed to happen. But she doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to.


	6. the storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> read the edited author’s note in chapter 5 for more information.

Victoria needed a shower. 

She didn’t feel dirty after spending the night with Chloe. She felt dirty about finding herself under Chloe’s warm body and having soiled thoughts about it. She had to wake herself up very early and keep investigating to keep her mind occupied, but sometimes Chloe lets out a loud snore and it gets her attention...and then Victoria catches herself staring at legs and Chloe’s shirt riding up as she tosses and turns.

She had already spent too long in yesterday’s clothes to have a cold shower but when she gathers her things and goes to the shower room, she does _exactly_ just that. It’s short, and it wakes her up but it doesn’t feel good. The water is shit, probably because it’s mostly hard water, and she had to be quick anyway. 

She makes a hasty retreat to her room and puts on some comfortable athletic clothes, rather getting those dirty than her casual wear. After fixing her hair, she grabs her phone and other essentials and leaves her room, ignoring some of the students in the way.

“Victoria!”

“Fuck,” Victoria mutters. She turns towards Dana, inside her room. “ _What?_ ”

“Where have you been all week? You haven’t responded to the group messages and some of us are worried...the party’s tonight—“

“ _Stop,_ ” Victoria interrupts, holding a hand up to silence Dana. She doesn’t care about that at all. In fact. “I don’t care.”

“What?” Dana’s voice sounds surprised and not relieved. Frantic, almost. 

“Are you deaf, Ward? _I don’t care,_ ” Victoria repeats. “Right now I got _way_ more important shit than the Vortex Club.”

Dana’s facial expression is a mix between confusion, curiosity, and concern. “You’ve been hanging out with Chloe a lot. Is she more important now?”

“At the moment, yes she is. Just...have fun without me,” Victoria sighs. “After Tuesday, I don’t really care for anything right now other than getting the fuck out of here. If i’m the winner for that dumb contest, so be it, but I...I gotta go.”

“Victoria, what about the club?”

“I’m out. Nathan can deal with that shit on his own...or better yet, _you_ can shut it down and revamp it.” With that, Victoria exits the dormitory and meets up with Chloe by the car. She never even noticed that she was holding so much weight but after saying she’s out of the club, she feels a sense of relief. She might not get away with colleges but that doesn’t matter. Her friendship with Nathan isn’t even there anymore, and the truth is revealing itself a lot more as the week goes by. 

She checks her phone and finds a bunch of texts from the group chat. She doesn’t read through them, but she does notice that no one let Juliet back in. Good. She leaves the chat and silences her phone, just in case Dana tells everyone what happened and they start calling her about it. 

She finds Chloe inside the car, with her head thrown back. Throwing a façade, she bangs on the window. “Chlo, let me in you lesbian.”

Chloe glares at Victoria. “And you’re _not_ a lesbian?”

“Debatable. Come on.”

“What took you so long?” Chloe asks as she pulls away from the school. 

“Dana stopped me on the way out. I told her to fuck off,” Victoria replies. “I’m tired and I would love to solve this shit...wait, what are we going to do once we solve this shit?”

“Run out of here?”

Victoria laughs. “As much as I would _love_ to get the fuck out of Arcadia Bay forever, I still go to school here.”

“You hate Arcadia Bay too?” Chloe asks, a little more expectant than she wanted.

“Not as much as you or Rachel, but I never liked being here. My home is Seattle,” Victoria answers. 

“You sure you didn't meet Max when you were over there?” Chloe asks.

Victoria shakes her head. “Nope. I doubt she went to the same school district as me. I went to a private middle school.”

“That explains why you're uppity,” Chloe chides.

“Fuck off, Chloe. If you attended the same school as me, you would've thought I was a saint compared to those fuckwits.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Honestly? The only person I’ve ever met that’s worse than you is Nathan. That asshole is doing something sinister in this town and i’m not going to rest until I find out what it is.”

“Same.” 

There’s a bit of silence until Chloe speaks. “What kind of barn is it?”

“From what I gathered, it’s an old barn that was owned by Harry Allan Prescott, Nathan’s ancestor. I know it”s way before his asshole father but Sean probably owns it since he’s obviously a descendant. Then I also read a lot about how the family would much rather marry cousins and siblings to keep the family name. Kind of explains Sean...and _Nathan_.”

“Seriously? That’s...fucking sick.”

“Happened in my family too, but my dad was the sensible one in the Chase family and married outside of his caliber. Meaning he didn’t marry a fucking cousin, and he also married outside his own religion. Thank _god_. I don’t know how I would’ve lived knowing I was conceived by incest.”

“Was Nathan conceived by incest?” Chloe asks.

“No. Kristine was,” Victoria replies. “They have different moms. Kristine’s mom, or rather her second cousin, died in childbirth so Sean married someone else and they had Nathan. He told me that but I didn’t know it was a generational thing until this morning. I just thought Sean Prescott was a sick asshole.”

Nothing else is said until they reach the derelict barn. It gives off a very weird energy upon reaching it and Victoria wonders if Chloe could feel it too. Chloe parks it far away from the barn and they walk towards it. There are fresh tire marks and a very modern power supply for a barn that was probably built centuries ago. “Shit, how are we going to get in there?”

“There’s an opening on the side here,” Chloe says. Victoria follows her and finds a barn which is just as terrible in condition as it is outside. “I’m gonna find some clues. You should do the same.”

“On it.” Victoria doesn’t waste time trying to find whatever they could find about this barn. There is something about it that’s setting off a lot of red flags, starting with the fresh tire marks. However, Nathan came here during the night he took Kate somewhere. He didn’t leave until late, which explains he might have done something. Chloe is looking at a chest full of old documents and on the way there, Victoria notices a padlock. Raising an eyebrow, she dusts the hay off and inspects it. This is also very modern and so off put. “What the hell is this,” she notes. It’s not going to be an easy peasy lock to pick. “Chloe, I think I found something.”

Chloe rushes to Victoria and sighs. “Fuck. What do we do now?”

“We gotta get it open,” Victoria says. “But how…?”

“MacGuyver it?”

“Can we _really_ MacGuyver this shit?”

“Anything is possible with a bobby pin,” Chloe suggests. She pulls it out and tries to use it on the padlock. Victoria feels like it’s not going to work because it looks a lot more advanced, however when Chloe releases the padlock from the door, she smirks at Victoria. “You were saying?”

“No time for your gloating. Let’s get this thing open.” Victoria lifts it up with Chloe’s help and it leads to an empty stairway. It’s so fucking weird that Victoria doesn’t have words. She just goes straight downstairs only to find a locked door with a passcode. She pulls out a piece of paper from the investigation files and puts in a three digit code, and it unlocks. She twists the door and it opens automatically, revealing a creepy bunker. The deep feeling in Victoria’s gut worsens as she enters the dark bunker.

She sees a piece of paper nearby the sink. She picks it up and reads it. 

“What are you reading?” 

“Nathan has...or _had_ a psychiatrist,” Victoria says. “It’s a letter detailing that this psychiatrist isn’t treating Nathan anymore because his father refuses to help him. His father is encouraging his erratic behavior, rather.”

“He needs some serious help before it gets even worse.”

“I think it probably _has_ ,” Victoria comments. “We wouldn’t be investigating him if his mental instability hasn’t gotten worse.”

“Shit. Why does everyone in this shit town with a mental illness gotta be fucked up? My step-fuhrer has some type of post traumatic stress and he not only dictates everything in my life but he treats his students like _shit_ , and Nathan might have done something to Kate...or Rachel. Or both.”

Victoria couldn’t reply to that. She goes further into the bunker, revealing a dark photography studio with expensive printers and other gear. This _couldn’t_ be just Nathan involved, she thinks. It seems too creepy even for Nathan, and while Nathan takes very dark and macabre images, this was _way_ too much. She looks around and checks a cabinet, finding binders upon binders of names, the names Kate and Rachel goading her to grab them. “Chloe, come check this shit out.”

Chloe opens the first one for Kate and both girls gasp audibly. “Oh my god…”

“Fuck...Kate,” Victoria whispers.

“What’s this other one?” Chloe opens the Rachel binder and Victoria can see Chloe’s facial expression turn from shock to sheer horror. Rachel has many images but three photos stick out to her. It appears that Rachel was in the junkyard when it happened as well. “ _No_ …”

“She must’ve been awake and furious in this one,” Victoria comments, pointing at the one where Rachel looks the most conscious.

Chloe shakes her head. “She has to be posing for these…”

“I don’t think Rachel would pose like that. Kate wouldn’t even pose like that... _willingly_.”

“Wait, I know where this is! This has to be...she can’t be…”

“I don’t know, Chloe. Everyone said it best. Rachel wouldn’t have left without a word and she looks completely out of it in these other photos…” 

“We have to go there...I know she posed for those photos. She can’t be dead. She can’t be…” Chloe stops looking at them and rushes to the entrance. Victoria looks at the file cabinet again and finds a folder with her name as well as a folder with Max’s name on it. She has to definitely warn Max about this. Would she be at the Vortex party? Probably not, so she can always check Max’s room. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that this isn’t just Nathan involved in this. Her dread grows even stronger as she leaves the bunker and meets Chloe at the car.

They race all the way to the junkyard as if time wasn’t of the essence. Victoria finds herself vibrating with dread the closer she gets to that junkyard. She knew something was off the minute she went there the first time, and she hopes it’s wrong. As much as she disliked Rachel, wanting her dead is another story. She couldn’t imagine wanting anyone dead, not even Kate before she actually died. 

“Fuck fuck fuck...if she’s dead i’m going to _kill_ Nathan,” Chloe growls. 

“This can’t just be Nathan,” she whispers to herself. “This can’t be…”

The junkyard appears within sight. They drive for a couple more yards until Chloe stops the car. She kills the engine swiftly before running off. “ _Shit!_ Price, wait for me!” Victoria shouts after her.

“I know where i’m going!” Chloe yells back. At this moment, Victoria is thankful she wore comfortable clothes and shoes before heading out because all this running would’ve ruined her expensive shit. She catches up with Chloe pretty quickly and they run over to a spot. “This is it.” Chloe kneels down and starts digging. “Don’t just stand there, help me!”

Victoria sighs a little, saying a silent second long prayer for her nails, and digs along with her. The dirt doesn’t feel good against Victoria’s skin and nails but she doesn’t stop. Something about this particular spot makes her want to dig more. She wishes she put gloves on first though...or _maybe_ used a shovel.

“Chloe—“ Victoria stops when she sees a bit of a band shirt. “Look…”

Chloe’s breath hitches as she dusts off the rest and the smell of rotting flesh hits them before they could continue. “ _Shit!_ ” Chloe cusses and moves her head to the side. 

Victoria feels bile rising in her throat from the smell, however they still couldn’t see anything - just a band shirt. They have to keep digging. She fights the urge to vomit and keeps digging until she sees blond hair peeking out. Her eyes fill up with sorrow tears as she drops her dirty hands and stares sullenly at the confirmed dead body.

“ _Rachel?_ ” Chloe sobs. “No, no, please not her!” Her words fail her as she moves away and dry heaves over a patch of grass. Victoria gets up and puts a hand on Chloe, while she coughs out before absolving to heart wrenching sobs. “Rachel…”

“I’m sorry…” Victoria’s words also fail her. She cries along with Chloe instead and wraps her arms around her.

* * *

 

Chloe’s sad tears turn into angry ones as she sits in the car contemplating her next move.

It took everything out of her not to believe that Rachel was dead for six months. She wanted to believe that Rachel took the high road without her. Now, she wishes Rachel did. Finding Rachel dead is not what she expected but now this has been the penultimate event that broke her. Arcadia Bay and the Prescotts got away with way too much since the day she was born. They dried up the shipyard and continued to ruin jobs for other people, almost bulldozed years of nature to build an apartment complex and killed one too many people. Chloe would probably be crazy if she believed it was one of the Prescotts who killed her father.

They didn’t bother covering Rachel’s insulting grave. They couldn’t. Chloe wanted people to know what the Prescotts did and Victoria threw up. Neither girl even bothered anymore.

It was silent inside the car all the way back to Blackwell. Chloe wanted to find Nathan and outright kill him. Even Victoria isn’t stopping her, and she expected Victoria to reason with Chloe. _Nope._ She hasn’t even said anything throughout the entire trip. Now that they’re in the parking lot, Victoria is still silent. It’s eight, meaning the party is starting. Nathan should be in there doing whatever it takes to drug up another student and take them to his dark bunker.

“There was a folder for Max,” Victoria finally says, her voice completely wasted from crying. “I think he’s going to get Max next, or me because I was there too. I—we have to warn her. Make sure she stays the _fuck_ away from Nathan Prescott. Don’t drink anything from anyone either. I don’t trust _anyone_ in there to make a single drink.”

“Do you think she would be at the Vortex Party?”

“Dunno. She hates the Vortex Club and the club doesn’t just accept everyone. I would know, I was co-owner. I wonder if they’ll let me in if Max isn’t at her room.”

“Come on then.” Chloe exits the car and goes straight to the dorms. Victoria follows suit. When the door opens, Taylor and Courtney step out. 

“Victoria, where have you been?” Courtney inquires. “Dana told me you quit the club and we’ve been trying to call you for _hours_!”

Chloe catches Victoria rolling her eyes in annoyance. “Can’t talk...is Max in there?”

“Why the _fuck_ are you asking for Max?” Courtney spits out.

“ _Do you know where she is or not?_ ” Chloe snaps.

“We don’t know where she is,” Taylor answers. “The last time I saw her, she was holed up in her room. I’m not sure if she’s going tonight despite Dana insisting that admission is for everyone who wants to turn out.”

Chloe sighs a little. That information isn’t settling but at least one of Victoria’s cronies was nice enough to say something. “Thanks, Taylor.”

Taylor only nods and drags Courtney away before the girl tries to say something. Chloe drags Victoria inside the dorms and they head upstairs to Max’s room. They knock on the door a couple times, only to come up with nothing. “Shit. She _must_ be at the party.”

“I hope Nathan didn’t get to her,” Chloe says. She really hopes Max is safe somewhere. The last thing she wants is for Max to go down the same way Rachel went down.

They leave the dorms and go straight to the gymnasium. As usual, the party is in full swing. Chloe hasn’t been to much Vortex Club parties, but this seems to be one of their biggest. Almost everyone is in attendance, probably because they’re announcing the winner of that contest and also forgetting that Kate died two days ago.

It also hasn’t occurred to Chloe how long it’s been. These past few days were jam packed and neither Chloe nor Victoria seem to catch a break concerning this case. In normal circumstances this would’ve took more than a week but it hasn’t. 

Chloe enters the gym and is ambushed by a bright purple light...or is that black? “This lighting is shitty.”

Victoria rolls her eyes and grabs Chloe’s hand to pull her inside, even further into the swimming pool. Chloe definitely ignores that surge from holding Victoria’s hand, instead being easily distracted by the grand turnout. These parties usually have a lot of people but it seems like _everyone_ showed up, even the ones who don’t usually go. Chloe notices everyone trying to have fun, even the ones who don’t always show up. There was some purple haired chick who fell in the swimming pool, and another kid who looked lost being thrown around like a sack of potatoes. Chloe is about to ask where they were going when she sees Max with a cup in her hand. Victoria lets go of Chloe’s hand and immediately smacks the red solo cup from Max’s reach.

“What the _fuck_ , Victoria?” Max exclaims.

“Who made you that drink?”

Max doesn’t answer automatically. Her mouth just hangs wide open in shock. Chloe sighs and takes initiative. “Max, whoever made you that drink might’ve laced it with a drug. Nathan is looking for you and he’s going to do bad things to you.”

“What the _hell_ are you talking about?” Max inquires. 

“Chloe’s telling the truth,” Victoria says, backing Chloe up. “Long story short, we were investigating Nathan all week and we found some really terrible things about him. He’s planning to do something to you next.”

“Nathan, doing something to me,” Max laughs. “ _Yeah, fucking right._ I don’t want that sorry son of a bitch. _You_ can have him though.”

Victoria grabs Max’s face and stares at her closely. Max slaps Victoria, prompting Victoria to let go and cover the side of her face. Chloe knows Victoria is fuming inside so she glares at Max. “What was that for?”

“ _No one_ grabs my face like that...and plus Victoria deserved it,” Max smirks.

“She’s high,” Victoria comments.

Chloe sighs deeply. Nathan already got to her. “How much did you have to drink?”

“I don’t know, a sip? It was good until _Bitchtoria_ knocked the cup right out of my hands,” Max replies, her words becoming more slurred by the second. “I should go get me another one—“

Chloe grabs Max’s shoulders. “That’s enough for SuperMax.”

Max snorts. “Who the _hell_ are _you_ to boss me around, Chloe Price?”

“Your best friend who’s warning your dumb ass,” Chloe growls back. “Rachel Amber is dead. Kate Marsh is also dead. Nathan is a predator who’s taking pictures of girls, without their fucking consent. He’s here and he’s probably going to strike if we don’t act fast, now do you believe us?”

Max stares at Chloe and Victoria for a few seconds, and then laughs again. “That would make for a great video game. What’s next? I have _rewind powers?_ ”

“This is fucking _hopeless_ ,” Victoria mutters.

“What’s _hopeless_ is your _entire being!_ ” Max shoots back. 

“ _Maxine!_ ” Chloe shouts. 

“Now _you_ of all people know that I do not like being called Maxine—“

“ _Boo fucking hoo_ , Shitfield,” Victoria chimes in. “Now let's get the fuck out of here.”

However when they try to drag Max out of the building, the music stops and Jefferson climbs up on stage. “Good evening everyone. I hope all of you are having a great time tonight at the End of the world Party.” Several wolf whistles and declarations of love are shouted. Chloe finds herself rolling her eyes. “Now it’s time to announce the winner for the Everyday Heroes contest.” Jefferson slowly opens the envelope and reads the paper before reading it out loud. His facial expression doesn’t look impressed...at all. “Well, what do you know. The winner is Victoria Chase.”

Chloe raises both eyebrows and looks to Victoria. Only sympathy claps can be heard, along with a couple boos. However Victoria stands in place, staring at Mr. Jefferson with a weird, far away look. “Vic?” Chloe asks, concerned. She momentarily forgets about Max and waves a hand in Victoria’s face.

“She’s not here?” Jefferson inquires.

“Victoria sucks!” Chloe hears someone say.

Victoria snaps out of it and walks out. Chloe growls to herself and follows Victoria, dragging a protesting Max with her. She realizes how fast Victoria is, even when she’s just walking, but she doesn’t give up. “Victoria! Where are you going?”

“Can I go get another drink—“

“ _Not now,_ Max!” Chloe shouts.

“You clearly have something to solve with your girlfriend so who am I to impose?” Max shrugs. “I’ll just look like a third wheel.”

“Wha...Victoria _isn’t_ my girlfriend,” Chloe defends.

“Then why are your cheeks getting red?” Max smirks.

“Maybe because it’s cold out here…”

“ _Bullshit_ , Price,” Max shoots. “I’ve known you for a long time and you don’t blush when it’s cold. Plus it’s like sixty degrees outside! It’s _barely_ cold for your face to get red.”

“What do you know?” Chloe asks.

“You _like_ Victoria,” Max sniggers. “That’s why you’re chasing after her and that’s why you two were walking inside holding hands.”

Chloe thought no one saw that...well, no one relevant. Shit. _Now_ she has Max confirming what she didn’t want to confirm, and while she’s high and probably won’t remember until the next morning, it still doesn’t feel right to have Max call her out. “I _don’t_ like her,” Chloe lies. “She’s...my friend.”

“ _Friend?_ Damn, Price, you make some shitty friends,” Max cackles.

“Yeah well, you’re one of them,” Chloe mumbles.

“I heard that,” Max deadpans.

“I don’t have time for this,” Chloe growls. She grabs Max’s wrist and goes to the dorms. She might as well lock Max in there so Nathan won’t catch her in there. However, she feels Max go limp. Before she can turn around, a sharp needle pricks her neck. “ _Shit!_ ” She hisses. Her line of vision gets even more blurry as she crashes to the ground. Max is already passed out but it takes her a little while to do so.

“Chloe!” A far away voice yells after her.

“Vic…” she says slowly, and darkness takes over her vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when your headcanon of victoria being part jewish becomes a reality in all your fics


End file.
